The Project Gutenberg eBook, This Is the End , by Stella Benson

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Title: This Is the End

Author: Stella Benson

Release Date: February 26, 2004 [eBook #11324]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

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THIS IS THE END

BY STELLA BENSON

1917

This is the end, for the moment, of all my thinking, this is my
unfinal conclusion. There is no reason in tangible things, and no
system in the ordinary ways of the world. Hands were made to grope,
and feet to stumble, and the only things you may count on are the
unaccountable things. System is a fairy and a dream, you never find
system where or when you expect it. There are no reasons except
reasons you and I don't know.

I should not be really surprised if the policeman across the way grew
wings, or if the deep sea rose and washed out the chaos of the land. I
should not raise my eyebrows if the daily press became the Little Sunbeam
of the Home, or if Cabinet Ministers struck for a decrease of wages. I
feel no security in facts, precedent seems no protection to me. The
wisdom you can find in an Encyclopedia, or in Selfridge's Information
Bureau, seems to me just a transitory adaptation to quicksand
circumstances.

But if the things which I know in spite of my education were false, if
the eyes of the sea forgot their secret, or if the accent of the steep
woods became vulgar, if the fairy adventures that happen in my heart fell
flat, if the good friends my eyes have never seen failed me,--then indeed
should I know emptiness, and an astonishment that would kill.

I want to introduce you to Jay, a 'bus-conductor and an idealist. She is
not the heroine, but the most constantly apparent woman in this book. I
cannot introduce you to a heroine because I have never met one.

She was a person who took nothing in the world for granted, but as she
had only a slight connection with the world, that is not saying very
much. Her answer to everything was "Why?" The fundamental facts that you
and I accept from our youth