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The question thrown into the den seems to imply that its interior was not seen. If so, the half-belief in Daniel's survival is remarkable. It indicates, as before, the impression of steadfast devoutness made by the old man's life, and also a belief that his God was possibly a true and potent divinity.
There is a half-belief, which we find in Virgil that is not superstition, nor inconstancy, nor cowardice. A child-like faith in the old creed is no longer possible, but it is equally impossible to surrender it.
'This is all folly, I replied, with the anger of one struggling against an unwelcome half-belief that refuses to be dismissed. 'It is all moonshine-madness. I'll never do it, not at least while I retain my reason. It was no doubt partly for safety as well as for the other reason that my father wished the cross to be placed in the tomb. It will be far safer now in a cabinet than anywhere else.
On the whole he began to conceive that he had done rightly, and in that half-belief, which drew slowly towards conviction, he went to bed and slept in a stolidity which surprised him later. The fact was that he was less resolved than tired. Whilst he was at his deepest sleep a thundering summons at his door aroused him.
But when an actor comes, and instead of the delightful phantom the creature dear to half-belief which Bannister exhibited displays before our eyes a downright concretion of a Wapping sailor a jolly warm-hearted Jack Tar and nothing else when instead of investing it with a delicious confusedness of the head, and a veering undirected goodness of purpose he gives to it a downright daylight understanding, and a full consciousness of its actions; thrusting forward the sensibilities of the character with a pretence as if it stood upon nothing else, and was to be judged by them alone we feel the discord of the thing; the scene is disturbed; a real man has got in among the dramatis personæ, and puts them out.
I suppose you would bring some things out into daylight questioning that I had rather leave in that twilight of half-belief peopled with shadows if they are only shadows more sacred to me than many realities. There is nothing I do not question, said the Master; I not only begin with the precept of Descartes, but I hold all my opinions involving any chain of reasoning always open to revision.
We have a half-belief that the person is possible who can counterpoise all other persons. We believe that there may be a man who is a match for events, one who never found his match, against whom other men being dashed are broken, one of inexhaustible personal resources, who can give you any odds and beat you. What we really wish for is a mind equal to any exigency.
With the whimsical, half-belief he had always had that the dead remain conscious through their long sleep, he wondered if his beautiful young mother, with the roses on her hair, down under the green earth, was not aware of the love and loyalty of her boy and if her spirit soaring the highest heavens, would not aid him in carrying out the resolution which in the bitterness of his soul, he then and there made the resolution to bring this mean little, puffed up world to do honor to his name to her name, of which he was prouder in this hour when others would trample it in the dust than he had ever been before.
This is easily said; but what if Milton could not seduce his readers to drop immateriality from their thoughts? What if the contrary opinion had taken so full a possession of the minds of men as to leave no room even for the half-belief which poetry requires? Such we suspect to have been the case. It was impossible for the poet to adopt altogether the material or the immaterial system.
Before morning Considine was back in Conrad Marais' parlour, relating his adventures among the Bergenaars with a half-belief that the whole affair was nothing more than a romantic dream. Seated one evening at the door of their dug-out hut or cavern on the banks of the river, the three brothers Skyd discussed the affairs of the colony and smoked their pipes.
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