Blackmail the Universe

p.135

"And yet...and yet...,' said I to my Teacher...even now I am not quite sure.

Is it really tolerable that she should be untouched by his misery, even his self-made misery?'

"Would ye rather he still had the power of tormenting her? He did it many a day and many a year in their earthly life."

"Well, no. I suppose I don't want that."

"What then?"

"I hardly know, Sir. What some people say on Earth is that the final loss of one soul gives the lie to all the joy of those who are saved."

"Ye see it does not."

"I feel in a way that it ought to."

"That sounds very merciful: but see what lurks behind it."

"What?"

"The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven."