Day. Men will die of disease, violence, famine and old age, and others
will be born to take their place. Intellectuals will be
pretentious--mules solemnly trying to look like Derby winners. There
will be a considerable amount of lying, injustice, and
self-righteousness. Dogs will be fairly decent, but some of them will
bite. Above all, the human conscience will survive. It will survive.
It will continue to be the old still, small voice we know--as still
and as small as it is possible to be without disappearing into silence
and nothingness. And some of us will get a certain amusement out of it
all, and will prefer life rather than death. We shall also go on
puzzling ourselves as to what under the sun it all means. Not even a
murderer will be without a friend or a pet dog or cat or bird. That is
what 1921 will be like. That, at least, is as certain as the time of
the high tide at Aberdeen on the 24th of January.




VIII



ON KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE


It was only the other day that I came upon a full-grown man reading
with something like rapture a little book--_Ships and Seafaring Shown
to Children_. His rapture was modified however, by the bitter
reflection that he had already passed so great a part of his life
without knowing the difference between a ship and a barque; and, as