y as her expressed belief
implied. This morning, the wonder and the grandeur of the dawn supplied
arguments to faith. If the best in human nature were always to be hunted
down and extinguished, if the efforts to rise in the scale of being, to
bring gifts instead of merely absorbing benefits, were only by a rare
combination of chances to escape the doom of annihilation, where was one
to turn to for hope, or for a motive for effort? How could one reconcile
the marvellous beauty of the universe, the miracles of colour, form,
and, above all, of music, with such a chaotic moral condition, and such
unlovely laws in favour of dulness, cowardice, callousness, cruelty? One
aspired to be an upholder and not a destroyer, but if it were a useless
pain and a bootless venture----?

Hadria tried to find some proof of the happier philosophy that would
satisfy her intellect, but it refused to be comforted. Yet as she
wandered in the rosy light over the awakening fields, her heart sang
within her. The world was exquisite, life was a rapture!

She could take existence in her hands and form and fashion it at her
will, obviously, easily; her strength yearned for the task.

Yet all the time, the importunate intellect kept insisting that feeling
was deceptive, that health and youth and the freshness of the morning
spoke in her, and not reason or experience. Feeling was left untouched
nevertheless. It was impossible to stifle the voices that prophesied
golden things. Life was all before her; she was full of vigour and
longing and good will; the world stretched forth as a fair territory,
with magical pathways leading up to dizzy mountain tops. With visions
such as these, the members of the Preposterous Society had fired their
imaginations, and gained impetus for their various efforts and their
various ambitions.

Hadria had been among the most hopeful of the party, and had pointed to
the loftier visions, and the more impersonal aims. Circumstance must
give way, compromise was wrong; we had but a short time in this world,
and mere details and prejudices must not be allowed to interfere with
one's right to live to the utmost of one's scope. But it was easier to
state a law than to obey it; easier to inspire others with faith than to
hold fast to it oneself.

The time for taking matters in one's own hands had scarcely come. A girl
was so helpless, so tied by custom. One could engage, so far, only in
guerilla warfare with the enemy, who lurked