Page:Path of Vision; pocket essays of East and West.djvu/60

 very heart of the radiant, universal Illusion. But these joy-rides were attended by many uncommonly horrible accidents. Thrones and altars were overturned to construct branch Lines and Shuttles; Kings and Queens and Excellencies were beheaded for being in the way; and even the Christ was run over by the Sanculotte Express, engineered by the Heberts and Marats.

This continued for many years until the Circumambient System came under the control of a more responsible Board of Directors presided by such men as Hugo and Mazzini, Balzac and Dickens, Renan and Carlyle. So an era of peace and prosperity followed, which was the mother of many private fortunes. In fact, the giant Corporation was gradually overshadowed and overpowered by limited private Lines, in which the schools, the universities and the daily press invested much of their capital stock. Now the honorable habit of commuting is resumed; and joy-riding, not through the infinity of negations, but far into the