But now the
great wave of emancipation which is lifting us all off our feet has
reached the coming race. And soon the old ideal will be nothing but a
strangled snake by the cradle of Hercules."
"Why, I never heard of such a thing in all my born days!" I cried
helplessly.
"Of course not; you are more ignorant than the babe unborn. You trouble
yourself about the next world, but as to what may be going on in the last
world, that never enters your head. But for the tyranny of outward social
forms you and I might have deferred our birth till a serener century.
Henceforth the dreamer of dreams will have only himself to blame if he is
born out of his due time and called upon to set the crooked straight. Job
himself would have escaped his misfortunes if he had only had the
patience to wait. In future any one who is born in a hurry will be a born
idiot."
"What! Will the unborn choose the time of birth as well as their
parents?"
"One is implicated in the other. Suppose the soul wished to be the son of
an American Duke, naturally it would have to wait till aristocracy was
developed across the Atlantic, say some time in the next century."
"I see. And is there a public opinion in Ante-land that regulates private
action?"
"Yes, but I have now educated it to the higher ethics.
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