here a
world shall burn _en barbecue_; but there is not, cannot be, a purpose
of eternity; it shall pay mainly as it goes, or not at all. The show
is on; and what a show, if we will but give our attention! Barbecues,
bonfires, and banners? Not twenty worlds a minute would keep up our
bonfire of the sun; and what banners of our fancy could eclipse the
meteor pennants of the pole, or the opaline splendors of the
everlasting ice? . . . Doubtless we _are_ ostensibly progressing, but
there have been prosperity and highjinks before. Nineveh and Tyre,
Rome, Spain, and Venice also had their day. We are going, but it is a
question of our standing the pace. It would seem that the news must
become less interesting or tremendously more so--'a breath can make us,
as a breath has made.'"

Elsewhere we read: "Variety, not uniformity, is more likely to be the
key to progress. The genius of being is whimsical rather than
consistent. Our strata show broken bones of histories all forgotten.
How can it be otherwise? There can be no purpose of eternity. It is
process all. The most sublime result, if it appeared as the ultimatum,
would go stale in an hour; it could not be endured."

Of course from an intellectual point of view this way of thinking must
be classed as scepticism. "Contingency forbids any inevitable history,
and conclusions are absurd. Nothing in Hegel has kept the planet from
being blown to pieces." Obviously the mystical "security," the "apodal
sufficiency" yielded by the anaesthetic revelation, are very different
moods of mind from aught that rationalism can claim to father--more
active, prouder, more heroic. From his ether-intoxication Blood may
feel towards ordinary rationalists "as Clive felt towards those
millions of Orientals in whom honor had no part." On page 6, above, I
quoted from his "Nemesis"--"Is heaven so poor that justice," etc. The
writer goes on, addressing the goddess of "compensation" or rational
balance;--

"How shalt thou poise the courage
That covets all things hard?
How pay the love unmeasured
That could not brook reward?
How prompt self-loyal honor
Supreme above desire,
That bids the strong die for the weak,
The martyrs sing in fire?
Why do I droop in bower
And sigh in sacred hall?
Why stifle under shelter?
Yet where, through forest tall,
The breath of hungry winter
In stinging spray resolves,
I sing to the north wind's fury