of his own generation. He wondered, too, if she would understand if he
told her all that was in his mind.

"Gloria, we are entering a new era. The past is no longer to be a guide
to the future. A century and a half ago there arose in France a giant
that had slumbered for untold centuries. He knew he had suffered
grievous wrongs, but he did not know how to right them. He therefore
struck out blindly and cruelly, and the innocent went down with the
guilty. He was almost wholly ignorant for in the scheme of society as
then constructed, the ruling few felt that he must be kept ignorant,
otherwise they could not continue to hold him in bondage. For him the
door of opportunity was closed, and he struggled from the cradle to the
grave for the minimum of food and clothing necessary to keep breath
within the body. His labor and his very life itself was subject to the
greed, the passion and the caprice of his over-lord.

"So when he awoke he could only destroy. Unfortunately for him, there
was not one of the governing class who was big enough and humane enough
to lend a guiding and a friendly hand, so he was led by weak, and
selfish men who could only incite him to further wanton murder and
demolition.

"But out of that revelry of blood there dawned upon mankind the hope of
a more splendid day. The divinity of kings, the God-given right to rule,
was shattered for all time. The giant at last knew his strength, and
with head erect, and the light of freedom in his eyes, he dared to
assert the liberty, equality and fraternity of man. Then throughout the
Western world one stratum of society after another demanded and
obtained the right to acquire wealth and to share in the government.
Here and there one bolder and more forceful than the rest acquired great