"You have done it, now!" cried Dr. Hagg, burying his bald brow
in his hands. "You have let in a draught on him; and he is dead."
As I walked away from Croydon that night I saw men in black carrying
out a coffin that was not of any human shape. The wind wailed above me,
whirling the poplars, so that they drooped and nodded like the plumes
of some cosmic funeral. "It is, indeed," said Dr. Hagg, "the whole
universe weeping over the frustration of its most magnificent birth."
But I thought that there was a hoot of laughter in the high wail
of the wind.
The New House
Within a stone's throw of my house they are building another house.
I am glad they are building it, and I am glad it is within
a stone's throw; quite well within it, with a good catapult.
Nevertheless, I have not yet cast the first stone at the new house--
not being, strictly speaking, guiltless myself in the matter
of new houses. And, indeed, in such cases there is a strong
protest to be made. The whole curse of the last century has
been what is called the Swing of the Pendulum; that is.
the idea that Man must go alternately from one extreme to the other.
It is a shameful and even shocking fancy; it is the denial of
the whole dignity of mankind. When Man is alive he stands still.
It is only when he is dead that he swings. But whenever one meets
modern thinkers (as one often does) progressing towards a madhouse,
one always finds, on inquiry, that they have just had a splendid escape
from another madhouse.
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