(Fading into his sleep.) I will be worshiped! I will be worshiped! (She smiles.)
The illusion of reality ceases. Suns and planets are gone. Time and Space are not. That which was is as that which was not.
ASHTORETH
WHAT has impressed me most about life, always, is the freshness and newness of everything, the perennial upwelling of life in every form; the manner in which, as age steals on for some, youth, new, innocent, inexperienced, believing, takes charge, its eyes alight with aspiration, its body ablaze with desire. We know that the world is old, old, and societies also in every form, while the average span of life for the individual is little more than forty years—yet step into the streets and witness the immemorable clangor and newness, the present visible portion of the unbroken thread or pattern that reaches back into eternity. And for all that life is so old, old, and atoms of the life pattern or chain are feeble, is life old? Does the bit of thread or pattern that we see here now show the least evidence of wear or tear? Is not the race as new, as fresh as ever? We rise betimes and the ancient sunlight streams fresh and strong and new into our passing window—this window which, in a few years, will be as forgotten and as non-recoverable as we ourselves shall be.
And the ways without—are they crowded with the aged, the worn, the soul-weary? Here and there, perhaps, a halting, bent or time-worn specimen that attracts attention for its age! In the main, at every turn, youth is in charge, laughing, singing, whistling, the newest modes of the Zeitgeist adorning it, the latest coats, the latest hats, the latest shoes heightening the charm of bodies utterly evanescent. The percentage of the really aged abroad is as one to one hundred—one thousand. Viewing the swift tides of life as they burble in the great thoroughfares they are utterly negligible. And it is always so. A large crowd of the old and the weak and the defective would be an astounding sight anywhere in life that is so old.
Yes, life is careful to do away with all evidences of age in the public places where it runs so gaily. The sick—are they here or in hospitals or darkened bedrooms? The maimed, the blind, the defective in any way—are they here, or hidden away in institutions where the young and the hopeful may not see? Life apparently resents them. It will not have its ways bestrewn by its discarded implements and shells. Out, out, since it is done with them. Away! There is much talk of charity and the beatitudes, but let one lose an arm, a leg, an eye, a hand. Practically the entire world shudders and withdraws. Better, indeed, a criminal, whole and exhibiting that self-sufficiency which the life impulse demands, than to have been injured in any worthy or even glorious contest. Rarely if ever, and never willingly, does Life obtrude upon our unwilling gaze a suggestion of the brevity of our own strength or charm, or present to the eye even a faint suggestion of the inscrutable and astounding and even wholesale cruelty of itself. Indeed, where Nature with her illusions has her way, pain, weariness and death are never to be accepted as the huge controlling facts that they are.
What—Nature cruel? Look at the freshness of Her face, the joy of Her perpetual youth, the glory of Her springs, the richness and variety of Her facets and changes! Quite so. She is the subtlest of all our enemies, the wisest of all our craftsmen and managers. Her instinct and therefore Her business is to keep the eternal freshness and durability and zest of life uppermost, and this She does with unbelievable skill. For although we are here, young and new, believing vigorously in our destiny, the grand sum of our future and its durability, still only forty or fifty years ago there were all of a billion people here who were as fresh and as vigorous and as youthful as we are now. They believed in their grand destinies as we believe in ours, and where are they? Gone. No trace—no memory even—no care. Only we are what is left of what was them, their descendants. And the astonishing tragedies, the painful diseases, the most grinding and wearing of denied hopes, by reason of which they are no longer here and we are—how adroitly even the memory of these have been removed! The wonder! Yet life is as fresh now as it was then. It has not aged. It has not gone. The endless chain is as bright and strong as ever—stronger, maybe. To-morrow when we are where they are it will be as taut and shining and swift-moving and as new as ever.
But these young bustling souls swinging their canes, lighting their cigarettes, whistling and dreaming of a perfect to-morrow—do they know aught of this? Not a word. And will they? Not, in the main, until it is too late to affect their lives. And, better yet, and what is really more important, they do not care. Life has one admirable trait: it limits the sensibility of many. “Never mind, dearie,” it seems to say, “do not worry about me, or older days. The old was nothing, the new is all. Eat, drink, be merry and forget. It is best.” Thus life, and it is her intention that they shall. Each sorrow or deprivation or disaster as it befalls them is painted in their consciousness as special to them. Never before was there one such to equal this. No, no. Life would not be so cruel. She would not intentionally do this to any one. “What!” she whispers artfully and convincingly, “life induce such bitter tears? Life ruthlessly and cruelly deprive any one of a hand? an eye? of life itself? Never. To be injured thus indifferently, when so many are not, was never intended by her for you, as you can see. If that is not so, why is it so many are well, hale, happy?” So she lies, for well she knows that each can know but a very little, has no time to learn more. And she sees that he has not.
But in the dark places, the back rooms, the upper floors or cellars of tenements or great houses, the hospitals, the asylums, the jails, the farms and homes for the aged—and the enormous graveyards! Look and see. Here are those who but a little while since were a part of this pell-mell vigorous scene. They were her tools, as you are now, her victims. She fashioned them as one might a small machine, used them for a while for something and then threw them aside. Like a knife or any tool, they grew a little dull, and it is so much easier to fashion a new one. We are intended to last only a little while. While your strength is budding that of others is failing. While your cheeks are reddening theirs are paling. While your eyes are sharpening in shrewdness theirs are weakening to a dim myopia, and you may soon out-see them and push them aside. Yet the bodies of the old that so offend you now were as lithe as your own, and they in their hour were grumbling at the ineffectiveness of age.