Purple Martins and the Moon 



The truth is that all, from minnows to 

 Members of Parliament, are but "parts 

 of one stupendous whole." 



Life at best is but an incident in the 

 history of worlds. All these whirling 

 spheres apparently had their Genesis 

 in gas and fire, and their Revelation in 

 ice and desolation; and, while the 

 various inhabitants of the earth and 

 air and water — from angle worms and 

 ants, to men and sharks and eagles — 

 are devouring one another in an end- 

 less chain of killing and digesting, all 

 alike are marked and headed for the 

 same ultimate physical extinction. The 

 moon has arrived at its supposedly 

 semi-final stage. The "fitful fever" 

 that rages all around ourselves has long 

 since disappeared from lunar depths 

 and plains and mountain heights. If 

 moon-folk ever lived by slaughtering 

 one another as we do, that monstrous, 

 cruel stage of existence has, for them, 

 happily ended. When we reach the 

 original inorganic elements we too, 



[95] 



