“The doctors are beginning to despair,” said the vicar. “Everything that medical science can do has been done already, and there’s no sign of an improvement.”
“The higher nerve centers, I suppose?”
“So I understand. The mere concussion of this modern artillery is appalling.”
“It is amazing to me that the human frame ever succeeds in adapting itself to war under modern conditions,” said Speke.
“And the awful thing is,” the host interposed in his melancholy tones, “that there appears to be no limit to what can be done in the way of self-immolation. The chemist and the inventor have only to go on long enough applying their arts to war to evolve conditions which will destroy the whole human race. We live in a time of horrors, but let us ask ourselves what the world will be twenty years hence?”
“Don’t, I implore you, Edward,” reproved his wife. “Spare us the thought.”
“No, it won’t bear speaking about,” said Speke. “We are already past the point where science destroys organic life faster than nature can replace.”
“Not a doubt of it,” said the vicar. “And if we cannot find a means of bridging permanently the chasm that has opened in the life of civilization, the globe will cease to be habitable for the human race.”
“Really! really!” said the hostess.
“Only too true,” said the host. “There’s hardly a limit to what modern devilry can do. Take aviation to begin with. We are merely on the threshold of the subject.”