such that his misery-machine is able to do nearly all the business. Such
a man goes through life almost ignorant of what happiness is. Everything
he touches, everything he does, brings a misfortune upon him. You have
seen such people? To that kind of a person life is not an advantage, is
it? It is only a disaster. Sometimes for an hour's happiness a man's
machinery makes him pay years of misery. Don't you know that? It
happens every now and then. I will give you a case or two presently. Now
the people of your village are nothing to me--you know that, don't you?"

I did not like to speak out too flatly, so I said I had suspected it.

"Well, it is true that they are nothing to me. It is not possible that
they should be. The difference between them and me is abysmal,
immeasurable. They have no intellect."

"No intellect?"

"Nothing that resembles it. At a future time I will examine what man
calls his mind and give you the details of that chaos, then you will see
and understand. Men have nothing in common with me--there is no point of
contact; they have foolish little feelings and foolish little vanities
and impertinences and ambitions; their foolish little life is but a
laugh, a sigh, and extinction; and they have no sense. Only the Moral
Sense. I will show you what I mean. Here is a red spider, not so big as
a pin's head. Can you imagine an elephant being interested in him
--caring whether he is happy or isn't, or whether he is wealthy or poor,
or whether his sweetheart returns his love or not, or whether his mother
is sick or well, or whether he is looked up to in society or not, or
whether his enemies will smite him or his friends desert him, or whether
his hopes will suffer blight or his political ambitions fail, or whether