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Page 13
"Most of them do, who count, my dear chap. The presence of a vital
spark--a spark that cannot be put out--is merely a theory with
nothing to prove it. When he dies, the animating principle doesn't
leave a man, and go off on its own. It dies too. It was part of
the man--as much as his heart or brain."
"That's only an opinion. Nobody can be positive. We don't know
anything about what life really means, and we haven't got the
machinery to find out."
"By analogy we can," argued Tom. "Where are you going to draw the
line? Life is life, and a sponge is just as much alive as a
herring; a nettle is just as much alive as an oak-tree; and an
oak-tree is just as much alive as you are. What becomes of its
vital spark when you eat an oyster?"
"You wouldn't believe in a life after death at all, then?"
"It's a pure assumption, Henry. I'd like to believe in it--who
wouldn't? Because, if you honestly did, it would transform this
life into something infinitely different from what it is."
"It ought to--yet it doesn't seem to."
"It ought to, certainly. If you believe this life is only the
portal to another of much greater importance, then--well, there you
are. Nothing matters but trying to make everybody else believe
t, too. But as a matter of fact, the people who do believe it, or
think they do, seem to me just as concentrated on this life and
just as much out to get the very best they can from it, and wring
it dry, as I am, who reckon it's all."
"They believe as a matter of course, and don't seem to realize how
much their belief ought to imply," confessed Henry.
"Why do they believe? Because most of them haven't really thought
about it more than a turnip thinks. They dwell in a foggy sort of
way on the future life when they go to church on Sundays; then they
return home and forget all about it till next Sunday."
Lennox brought him back to the present difference.
"Well, seeing you laugh at ghosts, and I remain doubtful, it's
only fair that I sleep in the Grey Room. You must see that.
Ghosts hate people who don't believe in them. They'd cold shoulder
you; but in my case they might feel I was good material, worth
convincing. They might show up for me in a friendly spirit. If
they show for you, it will probably be to bully you."
Tom laughed.
"That's what I want. I'd like to have it out and talk sense to a
spook, and show him what an ass he's making of himself. The
governor was right about that. When Fayre-Michell asked if he
believed in them loafing about a place where they'd been murdered
or otherwise maltreated, he rejected the idea."
"Yet a woman certainly died there, and without a shadow of reason."
"She probably died for a very good reason, only we don't happen to
know it."
Henry tried a different argument.
"You're married, and you matter; I'm not married, and don't matter
to anybody."
"Humbug!"
"Mary wouldn't like it, anyway; you know that."
"True--she'd hate it. But she won't know anything about it till
to-morrow. She always sleeps in her old nursery when she comes
here, and I'm down the corridor at the far end. She'd have a fit
if she knew I'd turned in next door to her and was snoozing in the
Grey Room; but she won't know till I tell her of my rash act
to-morrow. Don't think I'm a fool. Nobody loves life better than
I do, and nobody has better reason to. But I'm positive that this
is all rank nonsense, and so are you really. We know there's
nothing in the room with a shadow of supernatural danger about it.
Besides, you wouldn't want to sleep there so badly if you believed
anything wicked was waiting for you. You're tons cleverer than I
am--so you must agree about that."
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