In a moment she was kneeling by him, supporting, clasping him. Her power had become overwhelming, illimitable.
He looked at her with a grin, that was in some way sheepish, a little ashamed.
“Well, if I’m not, I jolly well ought to be,” he said.
It must have seemed to him so boastful to be alive again.
YOUNG STRICKLAND’S CAREER
NO DOUBT the story of the future is written, so far as the future is an expression of present potentialities. We boast our foreknowledge of planetary history, and can prophesy with fine accuracy the occurrence of every major and minor eclipse or occultation in the solar system. But in the most precise science there remains always at least one element that is undefinable and unknowable. The regular traffic of planets about the sun might one day be upset by the coming of an unknown visitor from the deeps of space. The materials of our knowledge are so limited. And in human affairs we know so little of the materials. Nevertheless, it may be that to the universal consciousness the future is a foretellable expression of our present potentialities.
I remember how my friend Strickland used to harp on that theme eighteen years ago. I was incredulous; a stickler for free-will. I could not bear the thought of anything like a cut-and-dried programme of human development. But my one really convincing retort to all his arguments was to reply, “Oh; on broad lines, perhaps. On the very broadest lines.”