each other's necks. And in fact, what human
ear, nose, or stomach could have longer withstood the deafening roar and
smoke of melanite explosions beneath our crypts; the sight and stench of
mangled bodies piled up within our narrow confines? Hideous and odious,
revolting beyond all expression, the underground war finished by
becoming impossible.

It is, however, painful to think that it lasted right up to the death of
our glorious preserver. Everyone is acquainted with the heroic adventure
in which Miltiades and his companion lost their lives. It has been so
often painted, sculptured, sung, and immortalised by the great masters,
that it is not allowable to pass it over in silence. The famous struggle
between the centralist and federalist cities, that is to say, at bottom,
between the industrial and artist cities, having ended in the triumph of
the latter, a still more bloodthirsty conflict sprang up between the
free thinking and the cellular cities. The former fought to assert the
freedom of love with its uncertain fecundity; the second, for its
prudent regulation. Miltiades, misled by his passion, committed the
fault of siding with the former, a pardonable error which posterity has
forgiven him. Besieged in his last grotto--a perfect marvel in
strongholds--and at the end of his provisions, the besiegers having
intercepted the arrival of all his convoys, he essayed a final effort:
he prepared a formidable explosion intended to blow up the vault of his
cavern, and forcibly to open a way upwards by which he might have the
chance of reaching a deposit of provisions. His hope was deceived. The
vault blew up, it is true, and disclosed a cavern above it, the most
colossal one had hitherto seen, that dimly resembled a Hindoo temple.
But the hero himself perished miserably, buried with Lydia beneath
enormous rocks on the very spot on which now stands their double statue
in marble, the masterpiece of our new Phidias, which is now the crowded
meeting-place of our national pilgrimages.

From these fruitful though troublous times, and from this beneficial
disorder, an advantage has accrued to us which we shall never
sufficiently appreciate. Our race, already so beautiful, has been
further strengthened and purified by these numerous trials.
Short-sightedness itself has disappeared under the prolonged influence
of a light that is pleasing to the eye, and of the habit of reading
books which are written in very large characters. For,