possibly
help to explain the condition of ruinous splendour in which I
found the world--for ruinous it was. A little way up the hill, for
instance, was a great heap of granite, bound together by masses of
aluminium, a vast labyrinth of precipitous walls and crumpled
heaps, amidst which were thick heaps of very beautiful pagoda-like
plants--nettles possibly--but wonderfully tinted with brown about
the leaves, and incapable of stinging. It was evidently the derelict
remains of some vast structure, to what end built I could not
determine. It was here that I was destined, at a later date, to have
a very strange experience--the first intimation of a still stranger
discovery--but of that I will speak in its proper place.

'Looking round with a sudden thought, from a terrace on which I
rested for a while, I realized that there were no small houses to be
seen. Apparently the single house, and possibly even the household,
had vanished. Here and there among the greenery were palace-like
buildings, but the house and the cottage, which form such
characteristic features of our own English landscape, had
disappeared.

'"Communism," said I to myself.

'And on the heels of that came another thought. I looked at the
half-dozen little figures that were following me. Then, in a flash,
I perceived that all had the same form of costume, the same soft
hairless visage, and the same girlish rotundity of limb. It may seem
strange, perhaps, that I had not noticed this before. But everything
was so strange. Now, I saw the fact plainly enough. In costume, and
in all the differences of texture and bearing that now mark off the
sexes from each other, these people of the future were alike. And
the children seemed to my eyes to be but the miniatures of their
parents. I judged, then, that the children of that time were
extremely precocious, physically at least, and I found afterwards
abundant verification of my opinion.

'Seeing the ease and security in which these people were living, I
felt that this close resemblance of the sexes was after all what
one would expect; for the strength of a man and the softness of a
woman, the institution of the family, and the differentiation of
occupations are mere militant necessities of an age of physical
force; where population is balanced and abundant, much childbearing
becomes an evil rather than a blessing to the State; where
violence comes but rarely and off-spring are secure, there is less
necessity--i