“Well,” I said, “there are in my experience a great many different kinds of hells.  There are almost as many kinds of hells as there are men and women upon this earth.  Now, your hell wouldn’t terrify me in the least.  My own makes me no end of trouble.  Talk about burning pitch and brimstone:  how futile were the imaginations of the old fellows who conjured up such puerile torments.  Why, I can tell you of no end of hells that are worse—­and not half try.  Once I remember, when I was younger——­”

I happened to glance around at my companion.  He sat there looking at me with horror—­fascinated horror.

“Well, I won’t disturb your peace of mind by telling that story,” I said.

“Do you believe that we shall go to hell?” he asked in a low voice.

“That depends,” I said.  “Let’s leave out the question of ‘we’; let’s be more comfortably general in our discussion.  I think we can safely say that some go and some do not.  It’s a curious and noteworthy thing,” I said, “but I’ve known of cases—­There are some people who aren’t really worth good honest tormenting—­let alone the rewards of heavenly bliss.  They just haven’t anything to torment!  What is going to become of such folks?  I confess I don’t know.  You remember when Dante began his journey into the infernal regions——­”

“I don’t believe a word of that Dante,” he interrupted excitedly; “it’s all a made up story.  There isn’t a word of truth in it; it is a blasphemous book.  Let me read you what I say about it in here.”

“I will agree with you without argument,” I said, “that it is not all true.  I merely wanted to speak of one of Dante’s experiences as an illustration of the point I’m making.  You remember that almost the first spirits he met on his journey were those who had never done anything in this life to merit either heaven or hell.  That always struck me as being about the worst plight imaginable for a human being.  Think of a creature not even worth good honest brimstone!”

Since I came home, I’ve looked up the passage; and it is a wonderful one.  Dante heard wailings and groans and terrible things said in many tongues.  Yet these were not the souls of the wicked.  They were only those “who had lived without praise or blame, thinking of nothing but themselves.”  “Heaven would not dull its brightness with those, nor would lower hell receive them.”

“And what is it,” asked Dante, “that makes them so grievously suffer?”

“Hopelessness of death,” said Virgil, “Their blind existence here, and immemorable former life, make them so wretched that they envy every other lot.  Mercy and Justice alike disdain them.  Let us speak of them no more.  Look, and pass!”

But Mr. Purdy, in spite of his timidity, was a man of much persistence.

“They tell me,” he said, “when they try to prove the reasonableness of hell, that unless you show sinners how they’re goin’ to be tormented, they’d never repent.  Now, I say that if a man has to be scared into religion, his religion ain’t much good.”