is the origin of force, of matter, of
life.

"_It is alive!_

"Its starry children are so many that the sands of the sea-shore may not
be used as a similitude for their multitude; and they extend so far that
distance may not be named in relation to them. They are so high above us
and so deep below us that there is neither height nor depth in them.
There is neither east nor west in them, nor north and south in them. Nor
is there beginning or end to them. Time drops his scythe and stands
appalled before that dreadful host. Number applies not to its eternal
multitudes. Distance is lost in boundless space. And from all the stars
that stud the caverns of the Universe, there swells this awful chorus:
Failure! failure and futility! And the ether is to blame!

"Heterogeneous suffering is more acute than homogeneous, because the
agony is intensified by being localised; because the comfort of the
comfortable is purchasable only by the multiplied misery of the
miserable; because aristocratic leisure requires that the poor should be
always with it. There is, therefore, no gladness without its
overbalancing sorrow. There is no good without intenser evil. There is
no death save in life.

"Back, then, from this ill-balanced and unfair long-suffering, this
insufficient existence. Back to Nirvana--the ether! And I will lead the
way.

"The agent I will employ has cost me all life to discover. It will
release the vast stores of etheric energy locked up in the huge atomic
warehouse of this planet. I shall remedy the grand mistake only to a
degree which it would be preposterous to call even microscopic; but when
I have done what I can, I am blameless for the rest. In due season the
whole blunder will be cured by the same means that I shall use, and all
the hideous experiment will be over, and everlasting rest or
_quasi_-rest will supersede the magnificent failure of material
existence. This earth, at least, and, I am encouraged to hope, the whole
solar system, will by my instrumentality be restored to the ether from
which it never should have emerged. Once before, in the history of our
system, an effort similar to mine was made, unhappily without success.

"This time we shall not fail!"

A low murmur rose from the audience as the lecturer concluded, and a
hushed whisper asked:

"Where was that other effort made?"

Brande faced round momentarily, and said quietly but distinctly:

"On the planet which was where the Asteroids are