notice the recession every day. Outside of
your own subservient laboratories what scientific work is being done?
Since Palomar and Mount Wilson and Flagstaff went what has happened in
astronomy? If you pick up the shrunken pages of your _Times_ or
_Tatler_, do you wonder at the reason for their shrinkage or do you
realize there are fewer literates in the world than there were ten years
ago?

"The Americas were upstart continents, werent they? I am not speaking
sarcastically, my point is not a chauvinistic one, not even
hemispherically prideful. And the Old World the womb of culture? But how
much culture has that womb borne since the Americas disappeared? Without
a doubt there are exactly the same number of composers and painters,
writers and sculptors alive on the four continents today as there were
when there were six, but in this drowsy halfworld how many books of
importance are being produced?"

"There are plenty of books already in existence; besides, those things
go by cycles."

"God give me patience; this is the man who has humanity prostrate."

"Humanity seems quite content in the position you ascribe to it."

"Of course, of course--that's the tragedy. It's content the same way a
man who has just had his legs cut off is content; suffering from shock
and loss of blood he enters a merciful coma from which he may never
emerge. The legs do not write the books or think the thoughts, whether
these activities wait for the cyclical moment or not, but the brain,
dependent on the circulation of the blood and the wellbeing of the rest
of the body for proper functioning. And who are you, little man, to
stand in the way of assisting the patient?"

"I shall not argue with you any further, Miss Francis. If mankind is
really as subject to your efforts as your conceit leads you to believe
then I am sure you will find some way to continue them."

"I'm sure I will," she said, and we left it at that.

To say her accusations had been gravely unjust would be to defend myself
where no defense is called for. I merely remark in passing that I gave
orders to set aside a still greater fund toward finding a reagent
against the Grass, and to put those who had lately assisted Miss Francis
in charge. I did this, not because I swallowed her strained analogy
about a sufferer with his legs cut off, but for purely practical
reasons. The world was very well as it was, but an effective weapon
against the Grass might at last make possible t