rove on blindly through the blackening London roads, and found
somewhere a tedious polling station and recorded his tiny vote.

The politician for whom the voter had voted got in by five hundred and
fifty-five votes. The voter read this next morning at breakfast,
being in a more cheery and expansive mood, and found something very
fascinating not merely in the fact of the majority, but even in the form
of it. There was something symbolic about the three exact figures; one
felt it might be a sort of motto or cipher. In the great book of seals
and cloudy symbols there is just such a thundering repetition. Six
hundred and sixty-six was the Mark of the Beast. Five hundred and
fifty-five is the Mark of the Man; the triumphant tribune and citizen. A
number so symmetrical as that really rises out of the region of science
into the region of art. It is a pattern, like the egg-and-dart ornament
or the Greek key. One might edge a wall-paper or fringe a robe with
a recurring decimal. And while the voter luxuriated in this light
exactitude of the numbers, a thought crossed his mind and he almost
leapt to his feet. "Why, good heavens!" he cried. "I won that
election; and it was won by one vote! But for me it would have been the
despicable, broken-backed, disjointed, inharmonious figure five hundred
and fifty-four. The whole artistic point would have vanished. The Mark
of the Man would have disappeared from history. It was I who with a
masterful hand seized the chisel and carved the hieroglyph--complete and
perfect. I clutched the trembling hand of Destiny when it was about to
make a dull square four and forced it to make a nice curly five.
Why, but for me the Cosmos would have lost a coincidence!" After this
outburst the voter sat down and finished his breakfast.

Ethandune

Perhaps you do not know where Ethandune is. Nor do I; nor does anybody.
That is where the somewhat sombre fun begins. I cannot even tell you for
certain whether it is the name of a forest or a town or a hill. I can
only say that in any case it is of the kind that floats and is unfixed.
If it is a forest, it is one of those forests that march with a million
legs, like the walking trees that were the doom of Macbeth. If it is a
town, it is one of those towns that vanish, like a city of tents. If it
is a hill, it is a flying hill, like the mountain to which faith lends
wings. Over a vast dim region of England this dark name of Ethandune
floats like an eagle d