I should feel no desire, so I was assured,
to do another angel's "dags" by sliding down the heavenly banisters.
My only joy would be to sing.
"Shall we start singing the moment we get up in the morning?" I
asked.
"There won't be any morning," was the answer. "There will be no day
and no night. It will all be one long day without end."
"And shall we always be singing?" I persisted.
"Yes, you will be so happy, you will always want to sing."
"Shan't I ever get tired?"
"No, you will never get tired, and you will never get sleepy or
hungry or thirsty."
"And does it go on like that for ever?"
"Yes, for ever and ever."
"Will it go on for a million years?"
"Yes, a million years, and then another million years, and then
another million years after that. There will never be any end to
it."
I can remember to this day the agony of those nights, when I would
lie awake, thinking of this endless heaven, from which there seemed
to be no possible escape. For the other place was equally eternal,
or I might have been tempted to seek refuge there.
We grown-up folk, our brains dulled by the slowly acquired habit of
not thinking, do wrong to torture children with these awful themes.
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