A Book Without A Title

Excerpt

THE ATHEIST

"I worship no one," cried the atheist. "Divinities are senseless, useless, barriers to progress and ambition, a curse to man. Gods, fetiches, graven images, idols—faugh!"

On the atheist's work-table stood the photograph of a beautiful girl.

II

The Devil, finishing his seidel of Würzburger, eyed the young man quizzically.

"What would you of me?" he said.

"I would ask," bade the young man, "how one may know the women who serve you as allies?"

"Find those who smile at themselves in their mirrors," said the Devil.

VIEWPOINT

In a rapidly ascending balloon were two men.

One watched the earth getting farther and farther away.

One watched the stars getting nearer and nearer.

IV

He was the happiest man in the world, and the most successful in all things. In his eyes was ever a smile; on his lips ever a song.

For the gods had made an awful mistake when they bore him into the world. They had placed his heart in his head, where his brain should have been, and his brain in his bosom, where his heart should have been.

TEMPORA MUTANTUR

They couldn't understand why he married her, but the ironic little gods who have such matters in hand knew it was because she had a little way of swallowing before speaking, because she had a little way, when she came to him and saw him standing there with arms open to clasp her tight and kiss her, of sweeping her hat off and sailing it across the room, because she had a way of twining her little fingers in his.

They couldn't understand why he divorced her, but the ironic little gods who have such matters in hand knew it was because she had a little way of swallowing before speaking, because....

VI

They showed her a nest swarming with impostures, deceits, lies, affectations, bitternesses, low desires, simulations, suspicions, distrusts, cheatings, hates, delusions, distortions, evasions. And she shrank from the sight of it as she looked close. But presently, when she turned from a distance of a dozen paces and looked back, she saw a brilliant-hued, beautiful bird soar from the nest and alight among the flowers.

"What is that gorgeous bird?" she asked.

"Love," they told her.

FLIPPANCY

The scholar spoke to the mob in his own language and the mob heard him not.

The scholar, that he might make himself understood to the mob, expressed himself then in rune and jingle.

"A wise man and one who speaks the truth," quoth the mob, "but it is a pity he is so flippant."

VIII

All women avoided him; no woman loved him.

The mischievous gods had given him, as the one gift they give at birth to each child on earth, great eloquence.

SIC TRANSIT—

"Everyone likes me," said the man.

"That is Popularity," whispered the little star.

"Everyone likes me and envies me," said the man, a year later.

"That is Fame," whispered the little star.

"Everyone despises me," said the man, a year later still.

"That is Time," whispered the little star.

X

It was moonlight in the court yard where languished among the flowers a lover and his mistress....