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a temperature of a million degrees on those two things I had modelled, and saw them vanish in an instant into inoffensive dust. The She-Ancient Speak, Arjillax: you who have advanced from imitating the lightly living child to the intensely living ancient. Is it true, so far? Arjillax It is partly true: I cannot pretend to be satisfied now with modelling pretty children. The He-Ancient And you, Ecrasia: you cling to your highly artistic dolls as the noblest projections of the Life Force, do you not? Ecrasia Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. The Newly Born Anticipating the She-Ancient, who is evidently going to challenge her. Now you are coming to me, because I am the latest arrival. But I don’t understand your art and your dolls at all. I want to caress my darling Strephon, not to play with dolls. Acis I am in my fourth year; and I have got on very well without your dolls. I had rather walk up a mountain and down again than look at all the statues Martellus and Arjillax ever made. You prefer a statue to an automaton, and a rag doll to a statue. So do I; but I prefer a man to a rag doll. Give me friends, not dolls. The He-Ancient Yet I have seen you walking over the mountains alone. Have you not found your best friend in yourself? Acis What are you driving at, old one? What does all this lead to? The He-Ancient It leads, young man, to the truth that you can create nothing but yourself. Acis Musing. I can create nothing but myself. Ecrasia: you are clever. Do you understand it? I don’t. Ecrasia It is as easy to understand as any other ignorant error. What artist is as great as his own works? He can create masterpieces; but he cannot improve the shape of his own nose. Acis There! What have you to say to that, old one? The He-Ancient He can alter the shape of his own soul. He could alter the shape of his nose if the difference between a turned-up nose and a turned-down one were worth the effort. One does not face the throes of creation for trifles. Acis What have you to say to that, Ecrasia? Ecrasia I say that if the ancients had thoroughly grasped the theory of fine art they would understand that the difference between a beautiful nose and an ugly one is of supreme importance: that it is indeed the only thing that matters. The She-Ancient That is, they would understand something they could not believe, and that you do not believe. Acis Just so, mam. Art is not honest: that is why I never could stand much of it. It is all make-believe. Ecrasia never really says things: she only rattles her teeth in her mouth. Ecrasia Acis: you are rude. Acis You mean that I won’t play the game of make-believe. Well, I don’t ask you to play it with me; so why should you expect me to play it with you? Ecrasia You have no right to say that I am not sincere. I have found a happiness in art that real life has never given me. I am intensely in earnest about art. There is a magic and mystery in art that you know nothing of. The She-Ancient Yes, child: art is the magic mirror you make to reflect your invisible dreams in visible pictures. You use a glass mirror to see your face: you use works of art to see your soul. But we who are older use neither glass mirrors nor works of art. We have a direct sense of life. When you gain that you will put aside your mirrors and statues, your toys and your dolls. The He-Ancient Yet we too have our toys and our dolls. That is the trouble of the ancients. Arjillax What! The ancients have their troubles! It is the first time I ever heard one of them confess it. The He-Ancient Look at us. Look at me. This is my body, my blood, my brain; but it is not me. I am the eternal life, the perpetual resurrection; but striking his body this structure, this organism, this makeshift, can be made by a boy in a laboratory, and is held back from dissolution only by my use of it. Worse still, it can be broken by a slip of the foot, drowned by a cramp in the stomach, destroyed by a flash from the clouds. Sooner or later, its destruction is certain. The She-Ancient Yes: this body is the last doll to be discarded. When I was a child, Ecrasia, I, too, was an artist, like your sculptor friends there, striving to create perfection in things outside myself. I made statues: I painted pictures: I tried to worship them. The He-Ancient I had no such skill; but I, like Acis, sought perfection in friends, in lovers, in nature, in things outside myself. Alas! I could not create if. I could only imagine it. The She-Ancient I, like Arjillax, found out that my statues of bodily beauty were no longer even beautiful to me; and I pressed on and made statues and pictures of men and women of genius, like those in the old fable of Michelangelo. Like Martellus, I smashed them when I saw that there was no life in them: that they were so dead that they would not even dissolve as a dead body does. The He-Ancient And I, like Acis, ceased to walk over the mountains with my friends, and walked alone; for I found that I had creative power over myself but none over my friends. And then I ceased to walk on the mountains; for I saw that the mountains were dead. Acis Protesting vehemently. No. I grant you about the friends perhaps; but the mountains are still the mountains, each with its name, its individuality, its upstanding strength and majesty, its beauty⁠— Ecrasia What! Acis among the rhapsodists! The He-Ancient Mere metaphor, my poor boy: the mountains are corpses. All The Young Repelled. Oh! The He-Ancient Yes.