by the use of a homely analogy which will be within the limits
of the intelligence of your readers."

"Man, he's a wonder--a living wonder!" said McArdle, shaking his
head reflectively. "He'd put up the feathers of a sucking-dove
and set up a riot in a Quakers' meeting. No wonder he has made
London too hot for him. It's a peety, Mr. Malone, for it's a
grand brain! We'll let's have the analogy."

"We will suppose," I read, "that a small bundle of connected
corks was launched in a sluggish current upon a voyage across
the Atlantic. The corks drift slowly on from day to day with the
same conditions all round them. If the corks were sentient we
could imagine that they would consider these conditions to be
permanent and assured. But we, with our superior knowledge, know
that many things might happen to surprise the corks. They might
possibly float up against a ship, or a sleeping whale, or become
entangled in seaweed. In any case, their voyage would probably
end by their being thrown up on the rocky coast of Labrador. But
what could they know of all this while they drifted so gently day
by day in what they thought was a limitless and homogeneous
ocean?

"Your readers will possibly comprehend that the Atlantic, in this
parable, stands for the mighty ocean of ether through which we
drift and that the bunch of corks represents the little and
obscure planetary system to which we belong. A third-rate sun,
with its rag tag and bobtail of insignificant satellites, we
float under the same daily conditions towards some unknown end,
some squalid catastrophe which will overwhelm us at the ultimate