"Simply having faith; hope, if you prefer it."
"But faith in what, and what do you base it on?"
"I wonder if we really matter at all to the rest of the scheme," Claire voiced.
"I am inclined to think not," replied Lawrence. "We matter only to ourselves, and what we can do with the universe around us."
"We matter to God, I think," said Philip. "I don't mean in the old accepted sense; but we must matter to Him in some way, perhaps as your statue here matters to you."
Lawrence chuckled weakly. "It mattered tremendously when I was doing it. Now it doesn't in the least matter. I shouldn't care if you burned it as firewood."
"But you must care," Claire protested, feeling that he was losing interest in his work because of her.
"I don't see why. I haven't any real assurance as to its value. It may be good, more likely it isn't; in any case, I have turned it loose to shift for itself. It can survive or not; its doing so is immaterial. Perhaps as immaterial as my existence is to the Great Artist who conceived the botched job called me."
"But, Lawrence, why insist that you don't matter to Him?"
"Oh, because I am scarcely aware of Him at all; indeed, I am not aware of Him, and I am sure He isn't aware of me."
"You have not any way to prove that," declared Philip.
"True, except that I can imaginatively comprehend the size of time and space, and all that is therein. I know my own size, and I can readily imagine that the creator of the whole is no more aware of me than I am, say, of a small worm that may be in the heart of my cherub there."
"We do seem pretty small in the face of the stars," said Claire.
"Yes, and so impossible," added Lawrence. "I didn't realize until to-day how utterly impossible I really am."
"But, impossible or not, here you are," Philip laughed.
"Yes, here I am and there I may be, but in either place I am not especially possible. You are; you can go out and make a definite, independent impression on life; that makes you possible in that you are forcing recognition of power and capability. I can't do that. The impression I make is one of incapability. For myself I am impossible, and for others more so."
"Which has nothing to do with God," said Philip, in his tone a touch of distaste.