THE UNDYING FIRE
"You have read the book!" said Sir Eliphaz.
The doctor grunted in a manner that mingled assent and disapproval. His expression betrayed the scientific bigot.
"We know now details of the passage," said Sir Eliphaz. "We have some particulars. We know, for instance, that people blown to pieces take some little time to reconstitute. There is a correlation between this corruptible body and the spirit body that replaces it. There is a sort of spirit doctor over there, very helpful in such cases. And burned bodies, too, are a trouble. . . . The sexes are still distinct, but all the coarseness of sex is gone. The passions fade in that better world. Every passion. Even the habit of smoking and the craving for alcohol fade. Not at first. The newly dead will sometimes ask for a cigar. They are given cigars, higher-plane cigars, and they do not ask for more. There are no children born there. Nothing of that sort. That, it is very important to understand. Here is the place of birth; this is where lives begin. This coarse little planet is the seed-bed of life. When it has served its purpose and populated those higher planes, then indeed it may freeze, as you say. A mere empty hull. A seed-case that has served its purpose, mattering nothing. These are the thoughts, the comforting and beautiful thoughts, that receive the endorsement of our highest scientific and philosophical intelligences. . . . One thinks of that life there, no doubt in some other dimension of space, that world arranged in planes—metaphorical planes, of course, in which people go to and fro, living in a sort of houses, sur-
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