CHAPTER I


The Master is inordinately fond of young fools. That is why they
are permitted to rush in where angels fear to tread--and survive
their daring! This supreme protection, this unwritten warranty to
disregard all laws, occult or apparent, divine or earthly, may be
attributed to the fact that none but young fools dream gloriously.
For such of us as pretend to be wise--and we are but fools in a
lesser degree--we know that humanity moves onward only by the
impellant of fine dreams. Sometimes these dreams are simple and
tender; sometimes they are magnificent.

With what airs we human atoms invest ourselves! What ridiculous
fancies of our importance! We believe we have destinies, when we
have only destinations: that we are something immortal, when each
of us is in truth only the repository of a dream. The dream flowers
and is harvested, and we are left by the wayside, having served our
singular purpose in the scheme of progress: as the orange is tossed
aside when sucked of its ruddy juice.

We middle-aged fools and we old fools can no longer dream. We have
only those phantoms called memories, which are the husks of dreams.
Disillusion stands in one doorway of our house and Mockery in the
other.

This is a tale of two young fools.