you up like
the rest. It's natural. It's the race instinct and has had its uses.
But it's dangerous. It kills most of us. We start out with brains to
use and eyes to see with and hands to make with and we end up by
thinking nothing and seeing nothing and making nothing that hasn't been
thought and seen and made for the last two thousand years. Most of us,
even when we know what is happening to us, are cowed and blackmailed
into surrender. We have to compromise--there are circumstances--always
circumstances--unless we are very strong--we give in--beaten out of
shape----"

His sentences, that had become painful and disjointed, broke off, and
there was another silence. Robert could say nothing. He was dazed
with the many words, half of which, it was true, he had not understood
at all. And yet they excited him. They seemed to pierce through and
touch some sleeping thing in himself which stirred and answered: "Yes,
yes, that's true--that's true."

The pressure on his shoulders increased a little.

"But you're not afraid of anything, are you, Stonehouse?"

"No--no, sir. I don't think so--not really----"

"I don't think you are, either. I liked the way you stood up to that
poor faggot of hereditary superstitions and prejudices who was trying
to frighten you into being as big a humbug as himself. He'll never get
over it. I daresay he'll make things very unpleasant for you in his
charming Christian way. How old are you, Stonehouse?"

"Ten--nearly, sir."

"You're big and precocious for your age. You'll get the better of him.
But if you'd been brought up with other children you'd have whined and
cringed--'Yes, sir,' 'No, sir'--and been a beastly canting hypocrite
all your life. You're wonderfully lucky if you only knew it,
Stonehouse. You're nearly ten, and you can't read and you don't say
your prayers and your catechism and you know nothing about God
Almighty. You've a sporting chance of becoming a man----"

Robert stumbled over his own feet. A deeper, almost overpowering,
tiredness had come over him. And yet he was fascinated. He had to try
to understand.

"Isn't there--I mean--isn't there anyone like God?"

Mr. Ricardo stopped short. He made a strange, wild gesture. Standing
there in the half-darkness he was more than ever like some poor hobbled
bird trying desperately, furiously to beat its way back to freedom.

"Superstition--superstition, Stonehouse--the most crushing, damnable
chain of