In the land where the Inca ruled they riot. They thrive in Mexico, in steaming valleys the Aztecs knew. In Central America, Guatamala in particular, they mark effectively the disappearing outline of Mayan temples. Where the world was earliest populated, we find them. In Ceylon, on the ruins of Anuradapura, where palaces towered at a date when European man was living in holes in the ground like an hairy animal, they throng like flocked phantoms of delight. The forests of Siam and Cambodia know them, and overflowing rivers which wash dead marble-cities, such as Angor, whose ruins of a perished civilization fascinate me. There, orchids flash like flame. They light the night wherever the dim, sluggish, tropic rivers swing. In deserted, rose-hued, marble cities such as Amber upon the Highlands of India, where man comes no more, where no more there is pageant, peacock, nor king, savage orchids cling. They cling wildly; _life_, which refuses death. They are lured by lands where memories are many, where there is the dust of millenniums and ruins of the fabulous mansions of men. It is appropriate that the man who has arisen to prove capability of plants for sensation, to prove they feel fear, suffer agony, should come from India, (Bose), where the idea was projected. And now we are on the threshold of truth that lies ahead. The romances of the future will be more thrilling than the old commonplace of a man falling in love with a woman, or _vice versa_. The romances of the future, when the novel as we know it now must disappear, will be written by that sleepless, fiery-eyed Demon, Science. How tame, silly, will the old novels, plays, seem of Priscilla, (say), meeting Paul in the garden! What a ridiculous thing in which to be interested! In this period of fashion not reason, which is to aim one’s heavy cannons, one’s best made spit balls, at the gods of yesteryear, it is well to read books of criticism for novelty, pleasure of mental exercise, and not trouble about believing what they say. Look upon it as a mental stunt! I have read recently that Flaubert was mediocre, and could not write, that Balzac had no ability of any kind, Maupassant lacked the short-story sense, and Shakespeare should be done over by someone who knows his rich Elizabethan England better than he did. Very likely the age we are living in is sterile save scientific mind. How can it go on, when it can not see the road? Probably little, or nothing, being written in this feverish period, will last. It is the bridge that leads from one shore to another. We may find pleasure in the shores, but the bridge will be forgotten. An impulse to besmirch what no one dared to besmirch is not genius. Its fineness, originality, value as attitude of mind, are questionable. Yet I can not dispute the fact that a large spot of black shows on a white surface. It can be observed at a distance. People see it. A thing that is new is not necessarily better, not to mention best.