Eden, what do they look like, and how many will they hold? Isn't it
clear that the things that make us happiest in this world are the things
we go for blind?"

He paused. Now a dozen men came a step or two nearer, and crowded close
together, looking over each others' shoulders at him with sharp,
wondering eyes.

"Isn't that so?" he continued. "Do you realise that no man knows where
that Jordan and those fields are, and what the flower of the tree of life
looks like? Let us ask a question again. Why is it that the one being
in all the world who could tell us anything about it, the one being who
had ever seen Jordan or Eden or that tree of life-in fact, the one of all
creation who could describe heaven, never told? Isn't it queer? Here he
was--that one man-standing just as I am among you, and round him were the
men who followed him, all ordinary men, with ordinary curiosity. And he
said he had come down from heaven, and for years they were with him, and
yet they never asked him what that heaven was like: what it looked like,
what it felt like, what sort of life they lived there, what manner of
folk were the angels, what was the appearance of God. Why didn't they
ask, and why didn't he answer? People must have kept asking that
question afterwards, for a man called John answered it. He described,
as only an oriental Jew would or could, a place all precious stones and
gold and jewels and candles, in oriental language very splendid and
auriferous. But why didn't those twelve men ask the One Man who knew,
and why didn't the One answer? And why didn't the One tell without being
asked?"

He paused again, and now there came a shuffling and a murmuring, a
curious rumble, a hard breathing, for Charley had touched with steely