Page 97 (1/1)

First, he understood that it made an enors It really was true--as true as tables and chairs--that there was a life after this, and that personality survived Never again could he doubt that for one instant, even in the gloo as a man walks by faith, by the acceptance of authority, huically possible the assertion of self, the instinct that what one has not personally experiencedas nostic instinct is an inificance There is no venture about it any more; there is, indeed, very little opportunity for heroism Once it is certain, by the evidence of the senses, that death is just an interlude, this life beco process

Now as to the conduct of that life--what of religion? And here, for a enuinely dision, he perceived that the whole thing had changed It no longer seeust and dominant As he conte, he seemed to have been rather absurd Why all this trouble, all this energy, all these innuion seemed necessarily untrue; it was certainly possible for a man to hold simultaneously Catholic and spiritualistic beliefs; there had not been a hint last night against Christianity, and yet, in the face of this evidence of the senses, Catholicisht well be true, as any philosophy may be true, but--did it matter very much? To be enthusiastic about it was the frenzy of an artist, who loves the portraitand inadequate portrait Laurie had seen for hiht; he had seen a disearb assumed for the purpose of identification Did he need, then, a "religion?" Was not his experience all-sufficing?

Then suddenly all speculation fled away in the presence of the personal eleht of Amy with comparative indifference She had been to him lately little more than a "test case" of the spiritual world, clothed about with theinto vivid vital life as a person She was not lost; his relations with her were not just incidents of the past; they were as much bound up with the present as courtship has a continuity with married life She existed--her very self--and communication was possible between them