Milo Hastings

“ Must we, who no longer bend the knees of the mind in spook idolatry nor shake with the ague of hell fear, pretend that science and religion have been reconciled and mumble incantations to a metaphysical essence instead of saying to a maternal God to open the windows of the sky and spill rain out of heaven? I want to write a blasphemous book because the gods who throttle human intelligence and block human progress have revealed their vulnerable spot—for they are the gods who fear laughter. ”

“ The bubble which Gud saw in his dream was iridescent with a great iridescence; for the colors of the bubble were many and they were ever changing, so that it was never twice alike.
In the iridescence of the bubble Gud saw the essence of transcendent beauty, for its beauty was as the beauty of youth, and as the beauty of faith, and as the beauty of love, and as the beauty of a woman, when she is young and has faith and a longing for more love than she has found. ”

“ Presently the bean half sprouted, and the sprout split the stone athwart and rent the footprint of the hero. Gud watered the bean with tears, because there was no rain in that place. So the bean grew and on its stem were the leaves of the maiden-hair tree, and the tendrils by which the bean clambered were the tendrils of the snake-feeder vine, and the flowers that sprang from the nodules of the bean stalk were the flowers of the wormwood tree, but they gave forth the odor of liverworts and were of the color of faded hopes or of stale music. ”

“ Reaching at last the bottom-most vault beneath the deepest hell, Gud came upon a junk shop.
As he entered, the proprietor, who looked both old and young, asked; "Comest thou to buy or to sell?"
"I have a few words which I might sell," said Gud.
"I am not much interested in words," replied the proprietor, who looked both old and young, "for I am a dealer in sin, and the sinfulness of words is much over-rated."
"But the words I have are the words of Genius."
"Is the genius dead?" asked the dealer.
"Not yet, but he is being hounded by a critic."
"I'll take them in trade," suggested the dealer. ”

“ When Gud had hurled the impossible curve out of space he felt again between the two points and found that the straight line had returned, and was again the shortest distance between the two points. And Gud said: "Let it be so. Old truth is better than new fiction."
And the eyes of Gud were opened, and he knew that there was much truth all about him, and that all space was full of truths and that the truths of space were mathematics. And Gud said: "It is good, for lo, here is something out of which I can fashion me the tools of creation!" ”

“ When Gud came up he, too, was without his reason and he thought Fidu, standing forlornly on the bridge, was an evil genius. When the mad dog ran on into the gloomy wilderness that was beyond the stream, the mad Gud followed after him and became lost in the wildness of the wilderness.
As Gud wandered on amid the gloomy shadows, the void in his mind, where his reason had been, became filled with many strange illusions, and he discovered that he could now believe many things that he had not previously been able to believe because they had been unreasonable. Faith in things unseen grew within him. ”

“ But you, Great Gud, appear to me to be a rational being."
"Oh, yes," confessed Gud, "I am quite rational at times; but from the nature of my position it is only right that I should uphold morality when it clashes with rationality, as I regret to say it often does. Because I must do this, I can see both sides of the case, which neither of you gentlemen can. So to me the solution is very simple, and will outrage neither morals nor reason. Murder and suicide must not be encouraged, births must not be limited, yet your world is full. ”

“ The morning after, Gud sat alone in space. All things else had been destroyed save Gud and space; and Gud was lonely, for creation had been done and undone and was no more, and eternity was over; and time was no more, for there were no more stars to mark the course of time.
Since this book is being written now, printed now, and read now and burned now; and since printing presses and reading eyes and consuming fires exist in an age of whirling worlds and beating hearts and ticking watches, which mark time and thus seem to make it, it is that this book is not. ”

“ There were many myriads of machines that Gud did not know, and he had no time in which to name them. But there were some machines that were very dreadful, and of these Gud knew the names and the uses, for he had seen the like of them in the little world of machines he had once visited, for these were killing machines.
But the killing machines could find nothing to kill for there was not any life, but only the machines that were fast filling all space. The spirit of the killing machines was not to create but to destroy and they boomed and shrieked mightily for their prey. ”

“ So many gods are out of work—they beg
For bread and sympathy to empty stalls
Where once delighted thousands paid them praise.
Religion simmers in the pot, or boils
Completely over as the housewives nod.
Strange trolls peek out from books of mathematics,
Grimace around cold scientific theories.
Dwarfs and goblins play at hide and seek
In empty attics of the homes of creeds;
While sex is swept with laughter like a gale
When we disturb the surface with an axe.
Have mercy on our hero, Gud the Great. ”

“ She replied to Gud and said: "Into the heart of woman have I also looked, and though it is not so simple, yet do I understand it, for am I not a woman?"
"Of a truth you are a woman, and you are very beautiful."
And she smiled upon Gud, and when she smiled, he vowed that he would grant her all her wishes and the fulfillment of all her dreams. ”

“ Such is the tragedy of her who flutters near while men make words on paper, that in their youth they write for her; and their youth gone, they still write on beyond the reaches of her soul.
And so, as Gud wrote upon the whiteness torn from a woman's bosom, he forgot quite utterly the woman herself, who lay by the pool trembling and suffering and trying to hide her heart from Gud. ”

“ But curiosity is a compelling instinct and wonder a powerful emotion; and so Gud followed the trail as it led down the sloping beach and on down along the bottom of the sea.
At last the trail led to a rocky cavern where phosphorescent eyes stared out of opalescent water. Here the trail came finally to an end as it entered a door in the side of a barnacle-covered hull of an ancient galley.
"And what is this place?" asked Gud of a mermaid, who was sitting on one of the ship's knees: "and what bold criminal with a blood-stained trail has entered here?"
"Can't you read?" retorted the mermaid. ”

“ Gud, sauntering through the Market of Knowledge, came to a stall of a prophet and passed the time of day with him.
"Business is terrible," lamented the prophet.
"What is the trouble?" asked Gud sympathetically.
"Unfair competition," replied the prophet. "Those up-start scientists across the way have berated my goods and stolen my customers until I have none left save a few old ladies. Indeed, I fear me we shall never again see those good old days when even young men believed there was magic in the stars." ”

“ Gud was dumbfounded. "What can you be doing on this Impossible Curve?" he cried, "for I destroyed everything and my dog has eaten nothing. Speak up, sir, and tell me what you are before I annihilate you again."
"I am Cruickshank, the bookkeeper," replied the some one.
"Ah ha," exclaimed Gud, "and so you are another of those living things that evolved out of the ooze and slime of that little sphere that got the valences of its carbon atoms so dreadfully entangled!"
"I am a man," said Cruickshank, the bookkeeper. ”

“ I have roasted them and flayed them and boiled them without mercy; all that was nothing like seeing the disappointed expression in the eyes of those poor souls, all arrayed in their new celestial gowns and with harps in hand, staring like little lost children up at a dummy on the throne, and wailing because their god was dead!"
"When did all this happen?" asked Gud.
"A long while ago—like you, I've been on a vacation. The fact was that experience gave me a distaste for my profession. But you know how it is. We are all creatures of habit, as you say, and there are ups and downs in all business. ”

“ Passing a heap of fossil platitudes Gud came to an oasis in a Desert of Righteousness and saw nineteen pretty murderers hanging in a row. There also he saw the couple who were parted at the altar, a woman who had lost her intuition, and a herd of ambitious animals who believed in the transmigration of souls.
Gud entered the caravansary of the place and bargained with the keeper thereof to make a supper with meat and wine—after which there should be dancing.
To the supper, Gud bade a Skeptic, a Cynic, a Critic and a Cryptic. And Gud and his guests made merry. ”

“ So Gud decided to materialize without any hocus pocus, and the soul thought what Gud thought; so they materialized themselves without more ado.
"Well," said Gud, "let's make the rest of us."
"That's what I was thinking," agreed the soul.
"And shall we be savage or civilized?"
"Civilized," said the soul; "of course, it will be a lot of bother to make all the appurtenances of civilization, but one can't have equality as long as there is savagery and poverty in the world." ”

“ With a mighty cry of deliverance from this torture and terror of pure democracy and achieved equality, Gud called down lightning from on high and earthquakes from below and winds from abroad and floods from the seas, and destroyed the world of equality once and for all and forever, and all that was therein contained, and all the myriads of fraudulent Guds he had so foolishly made in his own image to please the longing for equality in the soul of the parlor sociologist, and thereby stop its wailing. ”

“ Third, we must either issue more death permits or cease to issue so many birth permits. That is absolutely logic, yet this Moralist refuses to accept it."
"I certainly do," shouted the Moralist. "Away with your sinful facts and your wicked logic! The morality of our world must be preserved at all costs. We must not encourage murder nor suicide, nor dare we discourage births, for that is also murder of those who would be born, and so it is race suicide. On these moral principles I stand as on the rock of truth, and no torrents of facts or floods of logic can dislodge me." ”

“ Then the Venerable Beard spoke up nobly. "The red hand of heresy grapples white faith by the throat. What is the use of all our theological blue laws if the black heart of atheism continues to control our yellow press?"
"Softly, softly, Brother," the Threadbare Coat made answer; "It is not charitable, neither is it wise, to bite the hand that feeds the press."
"Do not worry," replied the Vest with the Silver Horseshoes. "I never let my theological hand know what my secular hand doeth. Let us proceed to business. The burning of any heretic is good for a headline." ”

“ If you are, why do you not inspire these men who are writing this book about you to put something into the book that no one can understand? Indeed, if you cannot do that I shall be tempted to believe that you are not Gud, but only a mere figment of fancy conceived in the brains of two conceited young egotists who are seeking a cheap notoriety by shocking decent people with blasphemous literature. ”

“ And Gud took a scarlet runner bean and put it in a pot and lit a fire of cactus thorns and set the pot to boil. When the thorns began to crackle, an arrogant savor arose from the pot, and the vapors of it filled the sky, and through the vapors the new-made moon shown red as the blood of saints torn by lions because of their faith. ”

“ When Gud learned that this place was nameless, he whistled for his Underdog and they went on and passed through an impalpable fog of etheric vibrations, and over a great gulf of sublimated emptiness, and through a dark forest of neglected memories, and across a sandless desert swept by a breathless wind.
Chapter LV
The graveyard of the gods is silent under a heavy sky,
Where all the gods who never lived are buried when they die. ”

“ There is dogma, there is duty in the urge of dead emotion
Through the worshipped gods of yesterday the present gods exist
Hid away among our temples for the dreams of our devotion
The alters of the ages in their ruins still persist.
Let the mothers bear their children for the centuries to come
There is truth in adoration for the thing that is adored
And if all the many answers on the lips of life are dumb
At least the coming children may be murdered for the Lord.
Chapter LXV
After Gud had regaled himself on pork and beans he laid down under a deadly nightshade tree and fell asleep. ”

“ Gud was angered and he grasped the fellow by his egotism and shook him until his conceit rattled and made inferential allegations of hypocrisy.
"What is it to you," demanded the Critic, "if I spit into the brazier to make a stench to please the people?"
"But what do you with the words of Genius?"
"By the holy name of Public Opinion! Why should a man do the work of a street cleaner on the salary of a critic?" ”

“ The only visible salvation is systematic breeding of superior men; and against human breeding religion stands garbed in all her mummeries, shielding behind her wish fancies of immortality, the leering face of the ape man returned to prowl in the ruins of all we have builded.
"The little priests of religion play in sweet innocence with their hopes of heaven having not the least conception of the human drift. But the high priests of religion know very well on which side their bread is buttered. They know that spook worship thrives only in the soil of stupidity. ”

“ Gud took the whiteness of her bosom and thereupon he began to write, while she lay down upon the other side of the pool, and hid her bosom away from Gud, lest, now with its whiteness gone, he might see the color of her heart.
And so Gud, who is made in the image of man, became as a man. And as he wrote he forgot the woman, for when a pen is in the hand of man or god, the light that lies in woman's eyes burns dim as some brief candle.
And this indeed is the paradox of all who wield the treacherous weapon: that man sets out to write, some woman's heart to flutter ”

“ As Gud pondered this he chanced to stroll into the shop of a psychologist whose secretary had the nose bleed so that she fainted, and Gud asked: "What is the matter with her?"
"She is unconscious," replied the psychologist, "her mind has lost its awareness."
"Is her mind dead?"
"No, no," retorted the psychologist.
"Then why does she not talk?"
"Because her mind is unconscious and she cannot use it to talk with." ”