THE BREATH OF LIFE 



growths, and convert them into black rock, and I 

 will make rock of the myriad forms of minute life 

 with which you plant the seas; through immense 

 geologic ages my relentless, unseeing, unfeeling 

 forces wall drive on like the ploughshare that buries 

 every flower and grass-blade and tiny creature in its 

 path. My winds are life-giving breezes to-day, and 

 the besom of destruction to-morrow; my rains will 

 moisten and nourish you one day, and wash you into 

 the gulf the next; my earthquakes will bury your 

 cities as if they were ant-hills. So you must take 

 your chances, but the chances are on your side. I 

 am not all tempest, or flood, or fire, or earthquake. 

 Your career will be a warfare, but you will win more 

 battles than you will lose. But remember, you are 

 nothing to me, while I am everything to you. I 

 have nothing to lose or gain, while you have every- 

 thing to gain. Without my soils and moisture and 

 warmth, without my carbon and oxygen and nitro- 

 gen and hydrogen, you can do or be nothing; with- 

 out my sunshine you perish; but you have these 

 things on condition of effort and struggle. You 

 have evolution on condition of pain and failure and 

 the hazard of the warring geologic ages. Fate and 

 necessity rule in my realm. When you fail, or are 

 crushed or swallowed by my remorseless forces, do 

 not blame my gods, or your own; there is no blame, 

 there is only the price to be paid : the hazards of in- 

 vading the closed circle of my unseeing forces." 



122 



