I took care not to return to my former lodging, but
hastened that very day to quit a neighbourhood where
I could not long have escaped inquiries to which I
could have given no satisfactory answers. I regained
in safety my own country, in which I have been long
peacefully settled, and engaged in practical business,
till I retired on a competent fortune, three years
ago. I have been little invited and little tempted
to talk of the rovings and adventures of my youth.
Somewhat disappointed, as most men are, in matters
connected with household love and domestic life, I
often think of the young Gy as I sit alone at night,
and wonder how I could have rejected such a love,
no matter what dangers attended it, or by what conditions
it was restricted. Only, the more I think of a
people calmly developing, in regions excluded from
our sight and deemed uninhabitable by our sages, powers
surpassing our most disciplined modes of force, and
virtues to which our life, social and political, becomes
antagonistic in proportion as our civilisation advances,—the
more devoutly I pray that ages may yet elapse before
there emerge into sunlight our inevitable destroyers.
Being, however, frankly told by my physician that
I am afflicted by a complaint which, though it gives
little pain and no perceptible notice of its encroachments,
may at any moment be fatal, I have thought it my duty
to my fellow-men to place on record these forewarnings
of The Coming Race.