THE ROMAN ROAD
THE SECRET DRAWER
"EXIT TYRANNUS"
THE BLUE ROOM
A FALLING OUT
"LUSISTI SATIS"




PROLOGUE: THE OLYMPIANS

Looking back to those days of old, ere the gate shut behind me, I
can see now that to children with a proper equipment of parents
these things would have worn a different aspect. But to those
whose nearest were aunts and uncles, a special attitude of mind
may be allowed. They treated us, indeed, with kindness enough as
to the needs of the flesh, but after that with indifference (an
indifference, as I recognise, the result of a certain stupidity),
and therewith the commonplace conviction that your child is
merely animal. At a very early age I remember realising in a
quite impersonal and kindly way the existence of that stupidity,
and its tremendous influence in the world; while there grew up in
me, as in the parallel case of Caliban upon Setebos, a vague
sense of a ruling power, wilful and freakish, and prone to the
practice of vagaries--"just choosing so:" as, for instance, the
giving of authority over us to these hopeless and incapable
creatures, when it might far more reasonably have been given to
ourselves over them. These elders, our betters by a trick of
chance, commanded no respect, but only a certain blend of envy--