Page:Aaron's Rod, Lawrence, New York 1922.djvu/331

 is only stink.—Which, for me, is the truth concerning the ideal of good, peaceful, loving humanity and its logical sequence in socialism and equality, equal opportunity or whatever you like.—But this time he stinketh—and I'm sorry for any Christus who brings him to life again, to stink livingly for another thirty years: the beastly Lazarus of our idealism."

"That may be true for you—"

"But it's true for nobody else," said Lilly. "All the worse for them. Let them die of the bee-disease."

"Not only that," persisted Levison, "but what is your alternative? Is it merely nihilism?"

"My alternative," said Lilly, "is an alternative for no one but myself, so I'll keep my mouth shut about it."

"That isn't fair."

"I tell you, the ideal of fairness stinks with the rest.—I have no obligation to say what I think."

"Yes, if you enter into conversation, you have—"

"Bah, then I didn't enter into conversation.—The only thing is, I agree in the rough with Argyle. You've got to have a sort of slavery again. People are not men: they are insects and instruments, and their destiny is slavery. They are too many for me, and so what I think is ineffectual. But ultimately they will be brought to agree—after sufficient extermination—and then they will elect for themselves a proper and healthy and energetic slavery."

"I should like to know what you mean by slavery. Because to me it is impossible that slavery should be healthy and energetic. You seem to have some other idea in your mind, and you merely use the word slavery out of exasperation—"

"I mean it none the less. I mean a real committal of the life-issue of inferior beings to the responsibility of a superior being."

"It'll take a bit of knowing, who are the inferior and which is the superior," said Levison sarcastically.

"Not a bit. It is written between a man's brows, which he is."

"I'm afraid we shall all read differently."

"So long as we're liars."