Alwyn laughed.  “I dare say the young publisher may be perfectly right,”—­he said—­“But all the same he has no business to publish the literary emanations of such ignorance.”

“Perhaps not!—­but what is he to do, if nothing else is offered to him?  He has to keep his occupation going somehow,—­from bad he must select the best.  He cannot create a great genius—­he has to wait till Nature, in the course of events, evolves one from the elements.  And in the present general dearth of high ability the publishers are really more sinned against than sinning.  They spend large sums, and incur large risks, in launching new ventures on the fickle sea of popular favor, and often their trouble is taken all in vain.  It is really the stupid egotism of authors that is the stumbling-block in the way of true literature,—­each little scribbler that produces a shilling sensational thinks his or her own work a marvel of genius, and nothing can shake them from their obstinate conviction.  If every man or woman, before putting pen to paper, would be sure they had something new, suggestive, symbolical, or beautiful to say, how greatly Art might gain by their labors!  Authors who take up arms against publishers en masse, and in every transaction expect to be cheated, are doing themselves irreparable injury—­they betray the cloven hoof,—­ namely a greed for money—­and when once that passion dominates them, down goes their reputation and they with it.  It is the old story over again—­’ye cannot serve God and Mammon,’—­and all Art is a portion of God,—­a descending of the Divine into Humanity.”

Alwyn sat for a minute silent and thoughtful.  “A descending of the Divine into Humanity!” he repeated slowly—­“It seems to me that ‘miracle’ is forever being enacted—­and yet ... we doubt!”

“We do not doubt—­” said Heliobas—­“We know,—­we have touched Reality!  But see yonder!”—­and he pointed through the window to the crowded thoroughfare below—­“There are the flying phantoms of life,—­the men and women who are God-oblivious, and who are therefore no more actually living than the shadows of Al-Kyris!  They shall pass as a breath and be no more,—­and this roaring, trafficking metropolis, this immediate centre of civilization, shall ere long disappear off the surface of the earth, and leave not a stone to mark the spot where once it stood!  So have thousands of such cities fallen since this planet was flung into space,—­and even so shall thousands still fall.  Learning, civilization, science, progress,—­these things exist merely for the training and education of a chosen few—­and out of many earth centuries and generations of men, shall be won only a very small company of angels!  Be glad that you have fathomed the mystery of your own life’s purpose,—­for you are now as much a Positive Identity among vanishing spectres, as you were when, on the Field of Ardath, you witnessed and took part in the Mirage of your Past.”