Europe and elsewhere, by Mark Twain [pseud.] [with an appreciation by Brander Matthews and an introduction by Albert Bigelow Paine]

THAT DAY IN EDEN
"What have we?"
"This: Things which are outside of our orbitour own particular world-things which by our constitution and equipment we are unable to see, or
feel, or otherwise experience-cannot be made comprehensible to us in words. There you have the whole
thing in a nutshell. It is a principle, it is axiomatic,
it is a law. Now do you understand?"
The gentle creature looked dazed, and for all
result she was delivered of this vacant remark:
"What is axiomatic?"
She had missed the point. Necessarily she would.
Yet her effort was success for me, for it was a vivid
confirmation of the truth of what I had been saying.
Axiomatic was for the present a thing outside of the
world of her experience, therefore it had no meaning
for her. I ignored her question and continued:
"What is fear?"
"Fear? I do not know."
"Naturally. Why should you? You have not
felt it, you cannot feel it, it does not belong in your
world. With a hundred thousand words I should
not be able to make you understand what fear is.
How then am I to explain death to you? You have
never seen it, it is foreign to your world, it is impossible to make the word mean anything to you, so
far as I can see. In a way, it is a sleep - "
"Oh, I know what that is!"
"But it is a sleep only in a way, as I said, It is
more than a sleep."
"Sleep is pleasant, sleep is lovely!"
"But death is a long sleep-very long."
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