i66 BOOK OF THE DAMNED 



to cement together, the stones of their constructions. But negative- 

 ness always: so within itself a science can never be homogeneous or 

 unified or harmonious. So Miss Russel, in the Journal of the B. 

 A. A. y has pointed out that it is seldom that single stones, to say 

 nothing of long walls, of large houses that are burned to the ground, 

 are vitrified. 



If we pay a little attention to this subject, ourselves, before start- 

 ing to write upon it, which is one of the ways of being more nearly 

 real than oppositions so far encountered by us, we find: 



That the stones of these forts are vitrified in no reference to 

 cementing them: that they are cemented here and there, in streaks, 

 as if special blasts had struck, or played, upon them. 



Then one thinks of lightning? 



Once upon a time something melted, in streaks, the stones of forts 

 on the tops of hills in Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, and Bohemia. 



Lightning selects the isolated and conspicuous. 



But some of the vitrified forts are not upon tops of hills: some 

 are very inconspicuous: their walls too are vitrified in streaks. 



Something once had effect, similar to lightning, upon forts, mostly 

 on hills, in Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, and Bohemia. 



But upon hills, all over the rest of the world, are remains of forts 

 that are not vitrified. 



There is only one crime, in the local sense, and that is not to turn 

 blue, if the gods are blue: but, in the universal sense, the one crime 

 is not to turn the gods themselves green, if you're green. 



