NONSUCH 



crab -fly -sparrow-lizard -man- sand-rocks-water-air- 

 moon ; then we have it for a moment. It is almost im- 

 mediately lost again, and our restless weakling 

 minds reassume their myopic casualness, and we see 

 only a fish, a wave, a bird, or a beach. 



In war there are two major methods of attack, 

 a frontal assault by sheer force, or a lateral move- 

 ment, usually concealed as much as possible, which 

 ultimately will develop into an attempt on the 

 flank or even on the rear. 



Let us go back sufficient millions of years to 

 when most of the important groups of animals have 

 become established in the sea and imagine the more 

 adventurous spirits among them approaching this 

 new thing — a shore. Most of the creatures, being 

 Babbitts, or John Smiths or good middle-class peas- 

 ants of the great marine democracies, never heard of 

 the shore, or if they became conscious of it through 

 what passed for movies in the Cambrian or wireless 

 in the Ordovician, they shivered and gave thanks 

 that they did not have to leave their abyssal hearths 

 for any such new-fangled resorts. The gloriously 

 discontented aforementioned few, however, began 

 their attack and to this day are still continuing it. 



Their early success proved to be their ultimate 

 failure to achieve land life. Their story is compar- 

 able with an expedition which sets out to explore a 

 swamp-surrounded desert, and the members of 

 which become so skilled in conquering the difficul- 

 ties of swamp that they expire in the heat of the 

 desert's sun. 



88 



