I now find myself inspired to make a second legend of Creative Evolution without distractions and embellishments. My sands are running out; the exuberance of 1901 has aged into the garrulity of 1930; and the war has been a stern intimation that the matter is not one to be trifled with. I abandon the legend of Don Juan with its erotic associations, and go back to the legend of the Garden of Eden. I exploit the eternal interest of the philosopher's stone which enables men to live for ever. I am not, I hope, under more illusion than is humanly inevitable as to the crudity of this my beginning of a Bible for Creative Evolution. I am doing the best I can at my age. My powers are waning; but so much the better for those who found me unbearably brilliant when I was in my prime. It is my hope that a hundred apter and more elegant parables by younger hands will soon leave mine as far behind as the religious pictures of the fifteenth century left behind the first attempts of the early Christians at iconography. In that hope I withdraw and ring up the curtain. BACK TO METHUSELAH. PART I In the Beginning ACT I _The Garden of Eden. Afternoon. An immense serpent is sleeping with her head buried in a thick bed of Johnswort, and her body coiled in apparently endless rings through the branches of a tree, which is already well grown; for the days of creation have been longer than our reckoning. She is not yet visible to anyone unaware of her presence, as her colors of green and brown make a perfect camouflage. Near her head a low rock shows above the Johnswort. The rock and tree are on the border of a glade in which lies a dead fawn all awry, its neck being broken. Adam, crouching with one hand on the rock, is staring in consternation at the dead body. He has not noticed the serpent on his left hand. He turns his face to his right and calls excitedly._ ADAM. Eve! Eve! EVE'S VOICE. What is it, Adam? ADAM. Come here. Quick. Something has happened. EVE [_running in_] What? Where? [_Adam points to the fawn_]. Oh! [_She goes to it; and he is emboldened to go with her_]. What is the matter with its eyes? ADAM. It is not only its eyes. Look. [_He kicks it._] EVE. Oh don't! Why doesn't it wake? ADAM. I don't know. It is not asleep. EVE. Not asleep? ADAM. Try. EVE [_trying to shake it and roll it over_] It is stiff and cold. ADAM. Nothing will wake it. EVE. It has a queer smell. Pah! [_She dusts her hands, and draws away from it_]. Did you find it like that? ADAM. No. It was playing about; and it tripped and went head over heels. It never stirred again. Its neck is wrong [_he stoops to lift the neck and shew her_]. EVE. Dont touch it. Come away from it. _They both retreat, and contemplate it from a few steps' distance with growing repulsion._ EVE. Adam. ADAM. Yes? EVE. Suppose you were to trip and fall, would you go like that? ADAM. Ugh! [_He shudders and sits down on the rock_].