Page:The Works of H G Wells Volume 11.pdf/117

 of the Eocene was the bleak dawn of a denuded world. Crescendo if you will, but thereafter diminuendo, pianissimo. And then once again from fresh obscure starting-points far down the stem life swelled, and swelled again, only to dwindle. The world we live in to-day is a meagre spectacle beside the abundance of the earlier Tertiary time, when Behemoth in a thousand forms, Deinotherium, Titanotherium, Helladotherium, sabre-toothed tiger, a hundred sorts of elephant, and the like, pushed through the jungles that are now this mild world of to-day. Where is that crescendo now? Crescendo! Through those long ages our ancestors were hiding under leaves and climbing into trees to be out of the way of the crescendo. As the motif of a crescendo they sang exceedingly small. And now for a little while the world is ours, and we wax in our turn. To what good? To what end? Tell me, you who say the world is good, tell me the end. How can we escape at last the common fate under the darkling sky of a frozen world?"

He paused for some moments, weary with speaking.

"There is no comfort," he said, "in the flowers or the stars; no assurance in the past and no sure hope in the future. There is nothing but the God of faith and courage in the hearts of men And He gives no sign of power, no earnest of victory He gives no sign"

Whereupon Sir Eliphaz breathed the word: "Immortality!"

"Let me say a word or two upon Immortality," said Sir Eliphaz, breaking suddenly into eagerness,