crazy. Perhaps I was, perhaps I am. So is the fellow crazy who invented
wireless telegraphy; so is the man off his base who invents a folding
bird cage. We are all crazy, and the craziest gang are our doctors at
the Hermitage." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. Arved rolled his
handsome head acquiescingly.

"You poets and musicians are trying to compass the inane. You are trying
to duplicate your dreams, dreams without a hint of the sun. The painter
at least copies or interprets real life; while the composer dips his
finger in the air, making endless sound-scrolls--noises with long tails
and whirligig decorations like foolish fireworks--though I think the art
of the future will be pyrotechnics. Mad, mad, I tell you! But whether
mad or not matters little in our land of freedom, where all men are born
unequal, where only the artists are sad. They are useless beings, openly
derided, and when one is caught napping, doing something that offends
church or State or society, he is imprisoned. Mad, you know! No wonder
anarchy is thriving, no wonder every true artist is an anarch, unavowed
perhaps, yet an anarch, and an atheist."

"Not so fast!" interrupted Arved. "I'm an anarchist, but I don't believe
in blowing up innocent policemen. Neither do you, Quell. You wouldn't
hurt a bartender! Give an anarchist plenty to drink, and he sheds his
anarchy like a shirt. There are, I have noticed, three stages in the
career of a revolutionist: destruction, instruction, construction. He
begins the first at twenty, at forty he is teaching, at sixty he
believes in society--especially if he has money in the bank." Quell
regarded the speaker sourly.

"You are a wonder, Arved. You fly off on a wild tangent stimulated by
the mere sound of a word. Who said anything about dynamite-anarchy?