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all very well in their way and in their proper places. But they are not love. They are an unnatural adulteration of love. Love is a simple thing and a deep thing: it is an act of life and not an illusion. Art is an illusion. Arjillax That is false. The statue comes to life always. The statues of today are the men and women of the next incubation. I hold up the marble figure before the mother and say, “This is the model you must copy.” We produce what we see. Let no man dare to create in art a thing that he would not have exist in life. Martellus Yes: I have been through all that. But you yourself are making statues of ancients instead of beautiful nymphs and swains. And Ecrasia is right about the ancients being inartistic. They are damnably inartistic. Ecrasia Triumphant. Ah! Our greatest artist vindicates me. Thanks, Martellus. Martellus The body always ends by being a bore. Nothing remains beautiful and interesting except thought, because the thought is the life. Which is just what this old gentleman and this old lady seem to think too. The She-Ancient Quite so. The He-Ancient Precisely. The Newly Born To the He-Ancient. But you can’t be nothing. What do you want to be? The He-Ancient A vortex. The Newly Born A what? The She-Ancient A vortex. I began as a vortex: why should I not end as one? Ecrasia Oh! That is what you old people are, Vorticists. Acis But if life is thought, can you live without a head? The He-Ancient Not now perhaps. But prehistoric men thought they could not live without tails. I can live without a tail. Why should I not live without a head? The Newly Born What is a tail? The He-Ancient A habit of which your ancestors managed to pure themselves. The She-Ancient None of us now believe that all this machinery of flesh and blood is necessary. It dies. The He-Ancient It imprisons us on this petty planet and forbids us to range through the stars. Acis But even a vortex is a vortex in something. You can’t have a whirlpool without water; and you can’t have a vortex without gas, or molecules or atoms or ions or electrons or something, not nothing. The He-Ancient No: the vortex is not the water nor the gas nor the atoms: it is a power over these things. The She-Ancient The body was the slave of the vortex; but the slave has become the master; and we must free ourselves from that tyranny. It is this stuff, indicating her body this flesh and blood and bone and all the rest of it, that is intolerable. Even prehistoric man dreamed of what he called an astral body, and asked who would deliver him from the body of this death. Acis Evidently out of his depth. I shouldn’t think too much about it if I were you. You have to keep sane, you know. The two Ancients look at one another; shrug their shoulders; and address themselves to their departure. The He-Ancient We are staying too long with you, children. We must go. All the young people rise rather eagerly. Arjillax Don’t mention it. The She-Ancient It is tiresome for us, too. You see, children, we have to put things very crudely to you to make ourselves intelligible. The He-Ancient And I am afraid we do not quite succeed. Strephon Very kind of you to come at all and talk to us, I’m sure. Ecrasia Why do the other ancients never come and give us a turn? The She-Ancient It is difficult for them. They have forgotten how to speak; how to read; even how to think in your fashion. We do not communicate with one another in that way or apprehend the world as you do. The He-Ancient I find it more and more difficult to keep up your language. Another century or two and it will be impossible. I shall have to be relieved by a younger shepherd. Acis Of course we are always delighted to see you; but still, if it tries you very severely, we could manage pretty well by ourselves, you know. The She-Ancient Tell me, Acis: do you ever think of yourself as having to live perhaps for thousands of years? Acis Oh, don’t talk about it. Why, I know very well that I have only four years of what any reasonable person would call living; and three and a half of them are already gone. Ecrasia You must not mind our saying so; but really you cannot call being an ancient living. The Newly Born Almost in tears. Oh, this dreadful shortness of our lives! I cannot bear it. Strephon I made up my mind on that subject long ago. When I am three years and fifty weeks old, I shall have my fatal accident. And it will not be an accident. The He-Ancient We are very tired of this subject. I must leave you. The Newly Born What is being tired? The She-Ancient The penalty of attending to children. Farewell. The two Ancients go away severally, she into the grove, he up to the hills behind the temple. All Ouf! A great sigh of relief. Ecrasia Dreadful people! Strephon Bores! Martellus Yet one would like to follow them; to enter into their life; to grasp their thought; to comprehend the universe as they must. Arjillax Getting old, Martellus? Martellus Well, I have finished with the dolls; and I am no longer jealous of you. That looks like the end. Two hours sleep is enough for me. I am afraid I am beginning to find you all rather silly. Strephon I know. My girl went off this morning. She hadn’t slept for weeks. And she found mathematics more interesting than me. Martellus There is a prehistoric saying that has come down to us from a famous woman teacher. She said: “Leave women; and study mathematics.” It is the only remaining fragment of a lost scripture called The Confessions of St. Augustin, the English Opium Eater. That primitive savage must have been a great woman, to say a thing that still lives after three