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but we shall hire butchers to do the killing first. And even if there were something in it—in the idea of a better race—it could only be for a time; until the earth begins to cool and we degenerate into forms of life too low for such aspirations. For a time humanity may rise; it may reach a more decent level than any it has yet attained to; but even then, the craving for love, the craving for power, will never lessen till life itself begins to fade. Hester and her friends believed that those cravings could be better managed.—Poor child! I can hear her talk!—They believed that they may be harnessed to useful machinery;—be made to plough and reap and irrigate. But it’s not so; you will never rationalize craving; you can only deviate it; and it may corrode us the more for being deviated. People who were loved once, will long to be loved again, and consume away with grief; people who have power without opportunity will canker with rage and envy; it may all stumble on, better than in the past; but for imagining that it will ever mean happiness or offer an ideal;—no; that’s not possible;—when one has felt he facts in one’s flesh and blood;—when one has seen in oneself everything one most hates in life. We do agree, you and I; we do see the truth; that beautiful things come to an end and are