e forest. Next morning I went for
my swim in the sea again, and on my return Dream told me that she knew
what I had done. She had seen me swimming far out.

"Why did you not tell me you had done this?"

"I feared to disturb your mind."

"I am not a child and am not to be treated as a child. I can think as
you think about the sea if I like. I dare do anything that you dare to
do."

I told her that I had no doubt of it. Rain fell for the greater part of
that day and we remained in the cave talking. She told me of the life
she had led and of the laws by which her people were governed.

I have said that I had begun to hate the lords of Thule--the first-class
beings as they designated themselves--the gods, as the poor ignorant
workers supposed them to be. I hate them still. I despise their sexless
emasculate nervousness. I despise their want of the warmer sins and
their subjection to the colder. I despise their selfishness even while I
admire their wisdom.

Yet, if I am to speak honestly, their despotism--not benevolent and
wholly self-interested--produced a finer race of workers than is to be
found in my own country to-day. They were better fed, better clothed,
better housed. They were healthier--disease was almost unknown--and they
were happier. I use the last word deliberately. The cruelty with which
they were treated--and to our modern minds it was abominable
cruelty--was after all not capricious cruelty. It proceeded on laws as
immutable as the laws of nature. The mother of the weakling who saw her
child destroyed at any rate knew why; and when the lightning strikes the
best and most promising of us we do not know why. Every man was
specially trained for special work, and his own inclination was always
taken into account; for the greater the inclination, the greater--as a
rule--the aptitude. The view taken of women was definitely animal, and
only in exceptional cases were women allowed to live beyond the age of
forty-five. On the other hand, no woman was worked hard; women who were
about to be mothers or had recently become mothers, were treated with a
delicate consideration far beyond anything to be found in our Factory
Acts; and no woman was influenced in her choice of a mate by vulgar
claims of a financial or social character. The children were free from
the thwarting and snubbing and the curse of competitive examination
which we are pleased to call education. Each child was taught a few
essentials very thorou