er dark, and the best path up the mountain--which I take to
be the path of true wisdom--is seen only from the top."

Year after year, therefore, arrived with hope and left disappointed;
new generations were born and millions of hopeful readers mingled
their own dust with that of the earth without the benefit of even a
phrase of Professor de Laix' wisdom.

Then one spring his colleagues and students noticed that he was
gradually becoming more and more animated, and was heard
occasionally to mutter, "Yes, yes, that's right, that's right."
Finally one day while he was sitting in a coffee shop regaling a few
favorite students with tales of fruitless thinking journeys upon
which he had in the past embarked, he took a sip of coffee (or
perhaps he had inadvertently been served espresso) and then suddenly
opened his eyes widely, sprang to his feet, and announced excitedly,
"That's it! I see it all now! Now it can be written! Everything
is completely clear! So clear! Ha ha! Now I understand! Now, at
last, I understand!"

After this brief speech, he burst out of the coffee shop (leaving
his students with expressions of amazement and an unpaid bill) and
began to run toward his office where he could finally sit down and
produce his great work. Now at last he could pour forth his
hitherto inexpressible wisdom to fertilize the orchards of culture
and bring into being a new and wonderful fruit for civilization to
munch upon.

Unfortunately, in his highly focused and externally oblivious rush
toward his office, he neglected to watch for the traffic as he
crossed the busy boulevard between the coffee shop and the
university (for academia is often separated from the rest of life by
just such a metaphor), and as a result he was tragically but
thoroughly run down by a fully loaded manure truck, whose cargo had
been produced after only one day's rumination, and whose owner also
hoped that it would swell the fruit on the trees of a less
figurative orchard.

Such was the life and death of the great Professor de Laix, a man
for whom someday almost came.

How the Humans Finally Learned to Like Themselves

It is man's peculiar distinction to love even those who err.
--Marcus Aurelius, VII.22

A sweet disorder in the dress. --Herrick

Once upon a time, many years from now, technology had continued its
remarkable progress to the point that the construction of artificial
people had finally become possible.