Suppose I think Nothing, then at least I think no evil of any one. Suppose I say Nothing good of any one, I say Nothing bad. If I have Nothing, I have no taxes to pay; no interest to collect; no houses to burn; nobody to gouge or harass, and nobody to gouge or harass me. Which is cheerful. If I am Nothing, no one cares for me, and equally I care for no one, so that no one and I are on good terms. Thus, you see, being Nothing, although I may accomplish no good in the world, I accomplish no evil. Every evil, every misery, every war, every misfortune, all the high taxes, all the poor operas, all the tough beefsteaks, all the sour Green Seal, all the fires, murders, explosions, and other such cheerful casualties, are the direct result of the efforts of these people who are Something.
Then, from a theological point of view, remember that if we were all Nothings, the Devil would have Nothing to do, and would have to let his fires go down and hang up his pitchforks, which would be a blessed thing for some of these people who are Somethings.
Nullity is the primal state of man. The Rev. Dr. Homilectics tries to impress upon me, each Sunday, the importance of going back to the days when Adam and Eve, in the latest cut of fig-leaves, played Romeo and Juliet under the apple-trees in Eden. He never stops to think that their innocence was the immediate result of being Nothing and doing Nothing, and that just as soon as they set out to be Something, they entailed the curse of work upon all mankind.
But I go further back than Adam and Eve. In the good old days of chaos, Nothing was in all its glory. It existed everywhere. No sight, no sound, no smell, no taste, No-thing. This was the normal condition.
And of what use was it? says Mrs. Increase, who is bringing up a large family of children, to be used hereafter as grindstones for other people's noses.
Why, my dear woman of facts and figures and spheres of usefulness, God Almighty took it and made this great world out of it, with all its mountains and rocks and rivers, its sunsets and rainbows and stars, its panorama of beauty by day and night, and you yourself, although you are, probably, but a very small and a very ugly part of this creation. Yes, madame, you and I came from this Nothing. I have retained this Nothing with great success. You, on the other hand, have been striving to change your normal condition by being Something. It is not for me to say whether you have succeeded. A great many people who think they are Something are really Nothing, and a poor kind of Nothing at that.