Page:HG Wells--secret places of the heart.djvu/50

38 the doctor’s qualification. “Why male? Don’t little girls smash things just as much?”

“They don’t,” said Dr. Martineau. “Not nearly as much.”

Sir Richmond went off at a tangent again. “I suppose you have watched any number of babies?”’

“Not nearly as many as a general practitioner would do. There’s a lot of rage about most of them at first, male or female.”

“Queer little eddies of fury.... Recently—it happens—I’ve been seeing one. A spit of red wrath, clenching its fists and squalling threats at a damned disobedient universe.”

The doctor was struck by an idea and glanced quickly and questioningly at his companion’s profile.

“Blind driving force,” said Sir Richmond, musing.

“Isn’t that after all what we really are?” he asked the doctor. “Essentially—Rage. A rage in dead matter, making it alive.”

“Schopenhauer,” footnoted the doctor. “Boehme.”

“Plain fact,” said Sir Richmond. “No Rage—no Go.”

“But rage without discipline?”

“Discipline afterwards. The rage first.”

“But rage against what? And for what?”

“Against the Universe. And for——? That’s more difficult. What is the little beast squalling