Page:The cry for justice - an anthology of the literature of social protest. - (IA cryforjusticea00sinc).pdf/425

 taking off the insurrectionary edge of poverty with coals and blankets, bread and treacle, and soothing and cheering the victims with hopes of immense and inexpensive happiness in another world, when the process of working them to premature death in the service of the rich is complete in this.

Prince Hagen

(Prince Hagen, ruler of the Nibelungs, a race of gold-hoarding gnomes, comes up to visit the land of the earth-men, and study Christian civilization. He finds a number of ideas worth taking back to his underground home)

Prince Hagen paused for a moment and puffed in silence; then suddenly he remarked: "Do you know that it is a very wonderful idea—that immortality? Did you ever think about it?"

"Yes," I said, "a little."

"I tell you, the man who got that up was a world-genius. When I saw how it worked, it was something almost too much for me to believe; and still I find myself wondering if it can last. For you know if you can once get a man believing in immortality, there is no more left for you to desire; you can take everything in the world he owns—you can skin him alive if it pleases you—and he will bear it all with perfect good humor. I tell you what, I lie awake at night and dream about the chances of getting the Nibelungs to believe in immortality; I don't think I can manage it, but it is a stake worth playing for. I say the phrases over to myself—you know them all—'It is better to give than to receive'—'Lay not up for your