_I do not say, then, that what I remember is all true but I can declare that what I shall recall is a relative truth as opposed to that monstrous testament the one-half world believes, entrenching deep thereby a mission at whose birth I officiated and one whose polished legend has since become the substantial illusion of a desperate race. That both mission and illusion were false, I alone can say with certainty, with sorrow, such being the unsuspected and terrible resolution of brave days. Only the crisis, which I shall record, was real._ _I have said I am not given to making judgments. That is not precise. It is true that in most “wicked” acts I have been able, with a little effort, to perceive the possibilities for good either in actual intention or (and to me more important) in uncalculated result; yet, ultimately, problems in ethics have never much concerned me: possibly because they have been the vital interest of so many others who, through custom, rule society, more agreeably than not. On that useful moral level I have been seldom, if ever, seriously engaged but once on another, more arduous plane I was forced to make a choice, to judge, to act: and act I did in such a way that I am still startled by the implications of my choice, of my life’s one judgment._ _I chose the light in preference to the dreamless dark, destroying my own place in the world, and then, more painful still, I chose the light in preference to that twilight region of indeterminate visions and ambiguities which most suited my nature, a realm where decision was impossible and where the potentialities of choice were endless and exquisite to contemplate. To desert these beloved ghosts and incalculable powers was the greater pain, but I have lived on, observing with ever-increasing intensity that blazing disk of fire which is the symbol as well as material source of the reality I have accepted entirely, despite the sure dominion in eternity of the dark other._ _But now, as my private day begins to fade, as the wind in the desert gathers in intensity, smoothing out the patterns in the sand, I shall attempt to evoke the true image of one who assumed with plausibility in an age of science the long-discarded robes of prophecy, prevailing at last through ritual death and becoming, to those who see the universe in man, that solemn idea which is yet called by its resonant and antique name, god._ 2 _Stars fell to earth in a blaze of light and, where they fell, monsters were born, hideous and blind._