show his teeth. It has been said that a man at ten is an animal,
at twenty a lunatic, at thirty a failure, at forty a fraud, and at fifty
a criminal. Perhaps he becomes a criminal because he has never
ceased to be an animal. Nothing is real to us but hunger, nothing
sacred except our own desires. Shrine after shrine has crumbled
before our eyes; but one altar is forever preserved, that whereon
we burn incense to the supreme idol,--ourselves. Our god is
great, and money is his Prophet! We devastate nature in order to
make sacrifice to him. We boast that we have conquered Matter
and forget that it is Matter that has enslaved us. What atrocities
do we not perpetrate in the name of culture and refinement!

Tell me, gentle flowers, teardrops of the stars, standing in the
garden, nodding your heads to the bees as they sing of the dews
and the sunbeams, are you aware of the fearful doom that
awaits you? Dream on, sway and frolic while you may in the
gentle breezes of summer. To-morrow a ruthless hand will close
around your throats. You will be wrenched, torn asunder limb
by limb, and borne away from your quiet homes. The wretch,
she may be passing fair. She may say how lovely you are while
her fingers are still moist with your blood. Tell me, will this be
kindness? It may be your fate to be imprisoned in the hair of
one whom you know to be heartless or to be thrust into the
buttonhole of one who would not dare to look you in the face
were you a man. It may even be your lot to be confined in
some narrow vessel with only stagnant water to quench the
maddening thirst that warns of ebbing life.

Flowers, if you were in the land of the Mikado, you might some
time meet a dread personage armed with scissors and a tiny saw.