about which he can occupy his thoughts. His interest in life
diminishes as the ideas which it suggests grow fewer, till at the last
death finds him with his mind a _tabula rasa_, as with you at birth. In
a word, his concern with life is reduced to a vanishing point before he
is called on to give it up. In dying he leaves nothing behind."

"And the after-death," I asked,--"is there no: fear of that?"

"Surely," was the reply, "it is not necessary for me to say that a fear
which affects only the more ignorant on Earth is not known at all to
us, and would be counted blasphemous. Moreover, as I have said, our
foresight is limited to our lives on this planet. Any speculation beyond
them would be purely conjectural, and our minds are repelled by
the slightest taint of uncertainty. To us the conjectural and the
unthinkable may be called almost the same."

"But even if you do not fear death for itself," I said, "you have hearts
to break. Is there no pain when the ties of love are sundered?"

"Love and death are not foes on our planet," was the reply. "There are
no tears by the bedsides of our dying. The same beneficent law which
makes it so easy for us to give up life forbids us to mourn the friends
we leave, or them to mourn us. With you, it is the intercourse you have
had with friends that is the source of your tenderness for them. With
us, it is the anticipation of the intercourse we shall enjoy which is
the foundation of fondness. As our friends vanish from our future with
the approach of their death, the effect on our thoughts and affections
is as it would be with you if you forgot them by lapse of time. As our
dying friends grow more and more indifferent to us, we, by operation of
the same law of our nature, become indifferent to them, till at the last
we are scarcely more than kindly and sympathetic watchers about the beds
of those who regard us equally without keen emotions. So at last God
gently unwinds instead of breaking the bands that bind our hearts
together, and makes death as painless to the surviving as to the dying.
Relations meant to produce our happiness are not the means also of
torturing us, as with you. Love means joy, and that alone, to us,
instead of blessing our lives for a while only to desolate them later
on, compelling us to pay with a distinct and separate pang for every
thrill of tenderness, exacting a tear for every smile."

"There are other partings than those of death. Are these, too, withou