THE SHE-ANCIENT.  Listen, child—­

THE NEWLY BORN.  Do not come near me, you dreadful old creature.  You frighten me.

ACIS.  Just give her another moment.  She is not quite reasonable yet.  What can you expect from a child less than five minutes old?

THE NEWLY BORN.  I think I feel a little more reasonable now.  Of course I was rather young when I said that; but the inside of my head is changing very rapidly.  I should like to have things explained to me.

ACIS [to the She-Ancient] Is she all right, do you think?

The She-Ancient looks at the Newly Born critically; feels her bumps like a phrenologist; grips her muscles and shakes her limbs; examines her teeth; looks into her eyes for a moment; and finally relinquishes her with an air of having finished her job.

THE SHE-ANCIENT.  She will do.  She may live.

They all wave their hands and shout for joy.

THE NEWLY BORN [indignant] I may live!  Suppose there had been anything wrong with me?

THE SHE-ANCIENT.  Children with anything wrong do not live here, my child.  Life is not cheap with us.  But you would not have felt anything.

THE NEWLY BORN.  You mean that you would have murdered me!

THE SHE-ANCIENT.  That is one of the funny words the newly born bring with them out of the past.  You will forget it tomorrow.  Now listen.  You have four years of childhood before you.  You will not be very happy; but you will be interested and amused by the novelty of the world; and your companions here will teach you how to keep up an imitation of happiness during your four years by what they call arts and sports and pleasures.  The worst of your troubles is already over.

THE NEWLY BORN.  What!  In five minutes?

THE SHE-ANCIENT.  No:  you have been growing for two years in the egg.  You began by being several sorts of creatures that no longer exist, though we have fossils of them.  Then you became human; and you passed in fifteen months through a development that once cost human beings twenty years of awkward stumbling immaturity after they were born.  They had to spend fifty years more in the sort of childhood you will complete in four years.  And then they died of decay.  But you need not die until your accident comes.

THE NEWLY BORN.  What is my accident?

THE SHE-ANCIENT.  Sooner or later you will fall and break your neck; or a tree will fall on you; or you will be struck by lightning.  Something or other must make an end of you some day.

THE NEWLY BORN.  But why should any of these things happen to me?

THE SHE-ANCIENT.  There is no why.  They do.  Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.  And with us there is eternity.

THE NEWLY BORN.  Nothing need happen.  I never heard such nonsense in all my life.  I shall know how to take care of myself.