LITERATURE. 



73 



throw iug a glance at sweet little Atah, who may be seen to tremble with emotion when the 

 Ijrilliant look of her beloved reaches the Southern Cross, attentling to all the myriads of 

 little worlds ol the univer>e, niu\ co\-ering tiieni with all tiie joys of plenty and beauty, 

 jjouring out hope and faith o\er every thing that is, and leturning everyday to see if his orders 

 have been obeyed, and if new wants are born for his bounties, knowing not leisure or rest, 

 ever rolling . . . taking care of everything, from the invisible atom to the greatest of 

 his satellites. 



In his ilaily course, War had always to pass before the burned sphere which was now 

 cooling rapidly, and presented to his gaze immense craters full to the brim of their cups with 

 lava, plateau of such a stretch that it would take two days for an emu to run across them, 

 and colossal ritlges of such an altitude that their summits would be beyond the reach of the 

 eye of man it he were standuig at tluir fiit, .md |)rojecting shadows twice as long as from here 

 to Parramatta, the Tribe of the lu'ls. War alwa\s looked with interest at those lifeless remains 

 wfiose stony features typified well a race of beings who did not believe in activity, sympathy, 

 and the omnipotence of irresistible Love, and who claimed, after having blindly and pitilessly 

 comlcmned all that was outside the pale of their congregation, that the only thing real and 

 justifiable w^as an order established immutably on the de(luctions of pure intellect, the 

 intellect to be their owm, and the whole universe to bi- ruiid, crushed, tortured, and crystal- 

 lised by them for all eternity. 



THE SCOURGE. 

 Then in the prime of youth, the earth was covered with the marvels of iier jnolilic fecundity. 

 ]£verything seemed to be promptetl by the inner force of aspiration to rush madly out of its 

 allotted cycle of e.xistence and to invade the kingtlom beyond the pale of which it found itself. 

 From out of the crater of Life were then projected in all directions forms of now unknown 

 character, some tlestined to survive, some to perish forgotten, all having to undergo the most 

 indescribable transformations operated by the irresistible push of life under the breath of a 

 universal rut. Circumstances now foreseen and explained were then of a formidable and 

 terrifying nature, sudden changes, unexpected turmoils, elements, hitherto stable and 

 immutable, melting and rushing like lightning into the seething cauldron of transmutation; 

 mineral, vegetable, and animal life intermingled and producing in their counter-activity 

 phenomena which have long since disappeared, leaving behind them only some vestiges of 

 their being, some preserved in the layers of the rocks, some having survived by adapting 

 themselves to new circumstances, and which now offer to our interrogative minds hints of 

 what once was but has disappeared for ever. Oh, what a time it must have l)een ! How 

 wonderful ! What an extraordinarily chaotic, superb, fascinating spectacle ! We can form 

 no just idea of it, yet if we open our eyes and look intently at the surviving remains, what 

 can we not imagine? All the forces interpenetrating each other, senses and sexes being born 

 to them by every effort in the blind struggle for life ; senses unconscious of their bearing, 

 acting blindly, rushing headlong into hermaphroditism or into bisexuality, whirling madly 

 in the spiral of aspirations towards a new state, upwards, downwards, always . 

 thrown out at a most unexpected tangent, or drawn towards the centre, there to be crushed 

 out of all shape and sucked into a new amalgamation, into the sudden birth of an undreamed-of 

 phenomenon. Germs of all varieties now carried by the whirlwinds into the awful and 

 heaving bosom of the tempest, then dropped on a rock seared and burning under the rays 

 of a scorching sun, to be overtaken in a minute by the surging, passing, irresistil^le wave, 

 running, rushing, splashing, searching for a road to return to its ocean. 



In the midst of the turmoil the most interesting changes taking place ; the mollusc 

 deserting the pearls of the ocean, gradually climbing the cliffs, and at last carrying its stone 

 house with him into the darkness of the forest, where, having become a land snail, he will see 

 the gigantic sensiti\e. whose shoots pierce the dense clouds, and whose aims stretch towards 

 each other to clench and strangle to death the mammoth who comes to disturb the harmony 



