FullReads

Hilbrook stopped, and swallowed dryly. Ewbert noticed how he had dropped more and more into the vernacular, in these reminiscences; in their controversies he had used the language of books and had spoken like a cultivated man, but now he was simply and touchingly rustic.

“Well,” he resumed, “that wore out, too. I went into business, and I made money and I lost it. I went through all that experience, and I got enough of it, just as I got enough of fightin’. I guess I was no worse scared than the rest of ’em, but when it came to the end I’d ’bout made up my mind that if there was another war I’d go to Canady; I was sick of it, and I was sick of business even before I lost money. I lost pretty much everything. Josiah–he was always a good enough friend of mine–wanted me to start in again, and he offered to back me, but I said no. I said if he wanted to do something for me, he could let me come home and live on the old place, here; it wouldn’t cost him anything like so much, and it would be a safer investment. He agreed, and here I be, to make a long story short.”

Hilbrook had stiffened more and more, as he went on, in the sort of defiance he had put on when he first began to speak of himself, and at the end of his confidence Ewbert did not venture any comment. His forbearance seemed to leave the old man freer to resume at the point where he had broken off, and he did so with something of lingering challenge.

“You asked me just now why I didn’t think character, as we call it, gave us some right to expect a life after this. Well, I’ll try to tell you. I consider that I’ve been the rounds, as you may say, and that I’ve got as much character as most men. I’ve had about everything in my life that most have, and a great deal more than some. I’ve seen that everything wears out, and that when a thing’s worn out it’s for good and all. I think it’s reasonable to suppose that when I wear out it will be for good and all, too. There isn’t anything of us, as I look at it, except the potentiality of experiences. The experiences come through the passions that you can tell on the fingers of one hand: love, hate, hope, grief, and you may say greed for the thumb. When you’ve had them, that’s the end of it; you’ve exhausted your capacity; you’re used up, and so’s your character,–that often dies before the body does.”

“No, no!” Ewbert protested. “Human capacity is infinite;” but even while he spoke this seemed to him a contradiction in terms. “I mean that the passions renew themselves with new occasions, new opportunities, and character grows continually. You have loved twice, you have grieved twice; in battle you hated more than once; in business you must have coveted many times. Under different conditions, the passions, the potentiality of experiences, will have a pristine strength. Can’t you see it in that light? Can’t you draw some hope from that?”

“Hope!” cried Ransom Hilbrook, lifting his fallen head and staring at the minister. “Why, man, you don’t suppose I want to live hereafter? Do you think I’m anxious to have it all over again, or any of it? Is that why you’ve been trying to convince me of immortality? I know there’s something in what you say,–more than what you realize. I’ve argued annihilation up to this point and that, and almost proved it to my own mind; but there’s always some point that I can’t quite get over. If I had the certainty, the absolute certainty, that this was all there was to be of it, I wouldn’t want to live an hour longer, not a minute! But it’s the uncertainty that keeps me. What I’m afraid of is, that if I get out of it here, I might wake up in my old identity, with the potentiality of new experiences in new conditions. That’s it I’m tired. I’ve had enough. I want to be let alone. I don’t want to do anything more, or have anything more done to me. I want to stop.”