At the same
time I fancied I heard her gently sobbing.
CHAPTER XXII
Suffering with a dejected feeling of despair, I wended my way through
the chaotic anterior hall in search of the hole through which I had so
miraculously entered. It seemed as if life's sole aim had suddenly been
stricken from the range of my vision. I could not understand why nature
should be so cruel as to give me but one momentary glimpse of that
angelic mortal and then thrust me away from her in such an indifferent
manner. I wondered why the world was not populated exclusively by such
lovely beings. Was it because the people themselves, through their
individual accumulative system, created conditions whereby only the most
abject and debased mortals could survive? Was this system responsible
for petty selfishness, instead of conscience governing man, causing him
in his greedy scramble for temporary gain, to keep others in a state of
helplessness, ignorance, and squalor, thus propagating an inferior race
of physical, mental, and moral pigmies as the foremost inhabitants of
the earth? Why could not humanity organize itself as a great unit of
unselfish effort and equality, for the purpose of uplifting and
strengthening all of its component parts, instead of those parts pulling
down, weakening, and destroying one another in a ferocious struggle for
individual predominance?
As these and similar thoughts crowded themselves into my brain, my
attention was attracted by soft strains of music emanating from the room
I had just left, and I stood still and listened.
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