Chapter 32

Through all aeons since all the worlds were made it is at least not
unthinkable that in all the worlds of which our own atom is one,
there has ruled a Force illimitable, unconquerable and inexplicable
and whichsoever its world and whatsoever the sign denoting or the
name given it, the Force--the Thing has been the same. Upon our
own atom of the universe it is given the generic name of Love and
its existence is that which the boldest need not defy, the most profound
need not attempt to explain with clarity, the most brilliantly
sophistical to argue away. Its forms of beauty, triviality,
magnificence, imbecility, loveliness, stupidity, holiness, purity
and bestiality neither detract from nor add to its unalterable
power. As the earth revolves upon its axis and reveals night and
day, Spring, Summer and Winter, so it reveals this ceaselessly
working Force. Men who were as gods have been uplifted or broken
by it, fools have trifled with it, brutes have sullied it, saints
have worshipped, poets sung and wits derided it. As electricity
is a force death dealing, or illuminating and power bestowing, so
is this Great Impeller, and it is fatuous--howsoever worldly wise
or moderately sardonic one would choose to be--to hint ironically
that its proportions are less than the ages have proved them.
Whether a world formed without a necessity for the presence and
assistance of this psychological factor would have been a better
or a worse one, it is--by good fortune--not here imperative that
one should attempt to decide. What is--exists. None of us created
it. Each one will deal with the Impeller as he himself either
sanely or madly elects. He will also bear the consequences--and so
also may others.

Of this force the Head of the House of Coombe and his old friend
knew much and had often spoken to each other. They had both been
accustomed to recognizing its signs subtle or crude, and watching
their development. They had seen it in the eyes of creatures young
enough to be called boys and girls, they had heard it in musical
laughter and in silly giggles, they had seen it express itself in
tragedy and comedy and watched it end in union or in a nothingness
which melted away like a wisp of fog. But they knew it was a thing
omnipresent and that no one passed through life untouched by it
in some degree.

Years before this evening two children playing in a garden had
not know that the Power--the Thing--drew them with its greatest
strength because among myriads of atoms they two were created for
oneness. Enraptured and unaware they played together, their souls
and bodies drawn nearer each other every hour.

So it was that--without being portentous--one may say that when
an unusually beautiful and unusually