MARTELLUS. Well, my brainy boy, you are welcome to try your hand. There are two of Pygmalion's pupils at the laboratory who helped him to manufacture the bones and tissues and all the rest of it. They can turn out a couple of new automatons; and you can model them as ancients if this venerable pair will sit for you. ECRASIA [_decisively_] No. No more automata. They are too disgusting. ACIS [_returning from the temple_] Well, thats done. Poor old Pyg! ECRASIA. Only fancy, Acis! Arjillax wants to make more of those abominable things, and to destroy even their artistic character by making ancients of them. THE NEWLY BORN. You wont sit for them, will you? Please dont. THE HE-ANCIENT. Children, listen. ACIS [_striding down the steps to the bench and seating himself next Ecrasia_] What! Even the Ancient wants to make a speech! Give it mouth, O Sage. STREPHON. For heaven's sake don't tell us that the earth was once inhabited by Ozymandiases and Cleopatras. Life is hard enough for us as it is. THE HE-ANCIENT. Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage: it can be delightful. What I wanted to tell you is that ever since men existed, children have played with dolls. ECRASIA. You keep using that word. What are dolls, pray? THE SHE-ANCIENT. What you call works of art. Images. We call them dolls. ARJILLAX. Just so. You have no sense of art; and you instinctively insult it. THE HE-ANCIENT. Children have been known to make dolls out of rags, and to caress them with the deepest fondness. THE SHE-ANCIENT. Eight centuries ago, when I was a child, I made a rag doll. The rag doll is the dearest of all. THE NEWLY BORN [_eagerly interested_] Oh! Have you got it still? THE SHE-ANCIENT. I kept it a full week. ECRASIA. Even in your childhood, then, you did not understand high art, and adored your own amateur crudities. THE SHE-ANCIENT. How old are you? ECRASIA. Eight months. THE SHE-ANCIENT. When you have lived as long as I have-- ECRASIA [_interrupting rudely_] I shall worship rag dolls, perhaps. Thank heaven I am still in my prime. THE HE-ANCIENT. You are still capable of thanking, though you do not know what you thank. You are a thanking little animal, a blaming little animal, a-- ACIS. A gushing little animal. ARJILLAX. And, as she thinks, an artistic little animal. ECRASIA [_nettled_] I am an animated being with a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. If your Automata had been properly animated, Martellus, they would have been more successful. THE SHE-ANCIENT. That is where you are wrong, my child. If those two loathsome things had been rag dolls, they would have been amusing and lovable. The Newly Born here would have played with them; and you would all have laughed and played with them too until you had torn them to pieces; and then you would have laughed more than ever. THE NEWLY BORN. Of course we should. Isnt that funny? THE HE-ANCIENT. When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth.