tool, to be the resultant of hundreds of thousands of wills! How great his lot!
Another second. The hand moved down, switching in the current. The lightning-sharp blade of the electric ray.... A faint crack like a shiver, in the tubes of the Machine.... The prone body, covered with a light phosphorescent smoke; then suddenly, under the eyes of all, it began to melt,—to melt, to dissolve with terrible speed. And then nothing; just a pool of chemically pure water which only a moment ago was so red and pulsated in his heart....
All this was simple; all of us were familiar with the phenomenon, dissociation of matter,—yes, the splitting of the atoms of the human body! Yet every time we witnessed it, it seemed a miracle; it was a symbol of the superhuman power of the Well-Doer.
Above, in front of Him, the burning faces of the female numbers, mouths half open from emotion, flowers swaying in the wind.[2] According to custom, ten women were covering with flowers the unif of the Well-Doer, which was still wet with spray. With the magnificent step of a supreme priest He slowly descended, slowly passed between the rows of stands; and like tender white branches there rose toward Him the arms of the
women; and, millions like one, our tempestuous cheers! Then cheers in honor of the Guardians, who all unseen, were present among us.... Who knows, perhaps the fancy of the ancient man foresaw them centuries ahead, when he created the gentle and formidable “guardian-angels” assigned to each one from the day of his birth?
[2] These flowers naturally were brought from the Botanical Museum. I, personally, am unable to see anything beautiful in flowers, or in anything else that belongs to the lower kingdom which now exists only beyond the Green Wall. Only rational and useful things are beautiful: machines, boots, formulae, food, etc.
Yes, there was in our celebration something of the ancient religions, something purifying like a storm.... You whose lot it may be to read this, are you familiar with such emotions? I am sorry for you if you are not.
RECORD TEN
A Letter
A Manhunt
Hairy I
Yesterday was for me a kind of filter-paper which chemists use for filtering their solutions (all suspended and superfluous particles remain on the paper). This morning I went downstairs all purified and distilled, transparent.