growth—­an artist expressing himself in millions of ever-changing forms; decay and death as we call them, being but rest and sleep, the ebbing of the tide, which must ever come between two rising tides, or the night which comes between two days.  But the next day is never the same as the day before, nor the tide as the last tide; so the little shapes of the world and of ourselves, these works of art by the Eternal Artist, are never renewed in the same form, are never twice alike, but always fresh-fresh worlds, fresh individuals, fresh flowers, fresh everything.  I do not see anything depressing in that.  To me it would be depressing to think that I would go on living after death, or live again in a new body, myself yet not myself.  How stale that would be!  When I finish a picture it is inconceivable to me that this picture should ever become another picture, or that one can divide the expression from the mind-stuff it has expressed.  The Great Artist who is the whole of Everything, is ever in fresh effort to achieve new things.  He is as a fountain who throws up new drops, no two ever alike, which fall back into the water, flow into the pipe, and so are thrown up again in fresh-shaped drops.  But I cannot explain why there should be this Eternal Energy, ever expressing itself in fresh individual shapes, this Eternal Working Artist, instead of nothing at all—­just empty dark for always; except indeed that it must be one thing or the other, either all or nothing; and it happens to be this and not that, the all and not the nothing.”

He stopped speaking, and his big eyes, which had fixed themselves on Fort’s face, seemed to the latter not to be seeing him at all, but to rest on something beyond.  The man in khaki, who had risen and was standing with his hand on his wife’s shoulder, said: 

“Bravo, monsieur; Jolly well put from the artist’s point of view.  The idea is pretty, anyway; but is there any need for an idea at all?  Things are; and we have just to take them.”  Fort had the impression of something dark and writhing; the thin black form of his host, who had risen and come close to the fire.

“I cannot admit,” he was saying, “the identity of the Creator with the created.  God exists outside ourselves.  Nor can I admit that there is no defnite purpose and fulfilment.  All is shaped to His great ends.  I think we are too given to spiritual pride.  The world has lost reverence; I regret it, I bitterly regret it.”

“I rejoice at it,” said the man in khaki.  “Now, Captain Fort, your turn to bat!”

Fort, who had been looking at Noel, gave himself a shake, and said:  “I think what monsieur calls expression, I call fighting.  I suspect the Universe of being simply a long fight, a sum of conquests and defeats.  Conquests leading to defeats, defeats to conquests.  I want to win while I’m alive, and because I want to win, I want to live on after death.  Death is a defeat.  I don’t