cravings beyond what the senses and experience of what we call the material world can supply.
The fact that he did not choose to speak about these themes, that he did not feel he was likely to derive any satisfaction from the discussion of them, may as reasonably be interpreted as an indication of the deep regard in which he held them, as of mere indifference towards them. He knew enough about theological and philosophical controversy to know that all the disputation of the ages had resulted in no clearer understanding of the reason or mystery of these problems. And is it not true besides that it is often just those subjects—subjects relating to our deeper intellectual emotions—that we shrink most from dragging into the arena of discussion? They lie too deep for ratiocination. The light must come to each from within not without.
One evening, probably the last I spent with him, sitting in the library, he asked abruptly:
'Do you ever think about death? I hate to think about it, but my illness has forced the thought of it on me, worse luck. Yes, I hate it, but I don't fear it. I love life, I love the world. The world contains everything beautiful and joyful. I know of no happiness that I can desire, no life that I should wish to live, that could give me more happiness than this world and life can give. Barring human wrong-doing, and disease, decrepit old age, and death, I see no imperfection in it. Heaven, or another life beyond the grave, of which men dream and hope so fondly, could give me nothing which I possess the faculties to use or enjoy, that the present world and life cannot give, except maybe—were it true—reunion with those who have gone before or who will shortly afterwards follow. Human wrong-doing and perhaps disease can be got rid of: but old age and death are irremediable. Sometimes death appears to me awful, terrible, so cruel, so absurd. Yet there are times when I don't have that feeling and death seems sweet and desirable. I sometimes think how sweet it would be to lie in the earth at the feet
