“Even so,” the artisan replied, ignorant that I spoke in satire. “See yonder maidens: we go to immolate them, to burn them and destroy them. Their work on earth is done; we need them no more; there is no place for them in the years now about to unfold.” “Yet they are very fair,” I said; “your fathers weep to see them in chains; your mothers pity them; your little children hold their hands and love them.” “Nevertheless, the adult working world has done with them, and knows them no more,” he answered. “Their thrones are empty; their time is past; their subjects are the ancient, the senile, the anile, and the little ones; but man in the might of his noon-day acknowledges them no more, for he pays suit and service to new sovereigns.” “The maidens’ names?” I asked, yet knew full well. “Faith, Hope, Charity,” he answered. “With the first will vanish rainbows, and the songs of birds and the colours of flowers, and all manner of vain things not needful to the welfare of man to-day; with the second we shall leave idle dreaming and building of cloud castles, cease from vain climbing on mountain peaks to see the sunrise, hide our eyes from the unneeded light, and burrow deep in the mud of which we are made; with the third we shall forget the weakling and the laggard, the sick and the sorrowful, the halt and the blind. Henceforth only the Fittest survive, and the race will go to him whose breath is steam, whose muscles are steel, whose eye flashes with electric secrets, whose heart is safely frozen under the icy armour of Utility!” They passed forward where three great pyres arose upon the plain; and the sky was overcast, while men said that it thundered. But I, in my dream, knew those awful and remote reverberations now echoing and re-echoing behind a dawn that had turned to darkness were the laughter of eternal Nox and primal Chaos, who watched mankind from afar, and waited for the sacrifice, that they might loose their lightnings and mighty winds, and take Earth back again to themselves, that ill deed done. THE DIARY OF A PERFECT GENTLEMAN There is to be a break-up in the family, and I gather that my future address will be Peckham Rye. Never heard of the place, and never wanted to, but begin to take interest in it now. I travel in a hamper alone. It seems I was advertised in the _Exchange and Mart_, and my people have sold me for thirty shillings. Thirty shillings for a pure-bred Persian tom kitten! Their business instincts must be paltry. I am worth five pounds if a penny. Not sorry to go. Only regret leaving my mother. I am two months old now, and she has been a great comfort to me since I was born. However, I can lap all right, so she’s no more use. My people tie a ribbon round my neck, pretend to regret my departure, then take me to the station. Thus I enter the world. * * * * *