by ordinary accident. Surely
it is not for those magnificent Socialists, or those great reformers
and reconstructors of Capitalism, sweeping onward to their scientific
triumphs and caring for none of these things, to murmur at our vain
indignation. At least if it is vain it is the less venal; and in so
far as it is hopeless it is also thankless. They have their great
campaigns and cosmopolitan systems for the regimentation of millions,
and the records of science and progress. They need not be angry with
us, who plead for those who will never read our words or reward our
effort, even with gratitude. They need surely have no worse mood
towards us than mystification, seeing that in recalling these small
things of broken hearts or homes, we are but recording what cannot be
recorded; trivial tragedies that will fade faster and faster in the
flux of time, cries that fail in a furious and infinite wind, wild
words of despair that are written only upon running water; unless,
indeed, as some so stubbornly and strangely say, they are somewhere
cut deep into a rock, in the red granite of the wrath of God.

CHAPTER IX

A SHORT CHAPTER

Round about the year 1913 Eugenics was turned from a fad to a fashion.
Then, if I may so summarise the situation, the joke began in earnest.
The organising mind which we have seen considering the problem of slum
population, the popular material and the possibility of protests, felt
that the time had come to open the campaign. Eugenics began to appear
in big headlines in the daily Press, and big pictures in the
illustrated papers. A foreign gentleman named Bolce, living at
Hampstead, was advertised on a huge scale as having every intention of
being the father of the Superman. It turned out to be a Superwoman,
and was called Eugenette. The parents were described as devoting
themselves to the production of perfect pre-natal conditions. They
"eliminated everything from their lives which did not tend towards
complete happiness." Many might indeed be ready to do this; but in the
voluminous contemporary journalism on the subject I can find no
detailed notes about how it is done. Communications were opened with
Mr. H.G. Wells, with Dr. Saleeby, and apparently with Dr. Karl
Pearson. Every quality desired in the ideal baby was carefully
cultivated in the parents. The problem of a sense of humour was felt
to be a matter of great gravity. The Eugenist couple, naturally
fearing they might be deficien