No; as I contemplate this roll-call of the dead which I have just
made I see that we are not playing a boy's game. Why, we have lost a
third of us, and the bloodiest battles of history have rarely
achieved such a percentage of mortality. Fourteen of us have gone
overside, and who can tell the end?
Nevertheless, here we are, masters of matter, adventurers in the
micro-organic, planet-weighers, sun-analysers, star-rovers, god-
dreamers, equipped with the human wisdom of all the ages, and yet,
quoting Mr. Pike, to come down to brass tacks, we are a lot of
primitive beasts, fighting bestially, slaying bestially, pursuing
bestially food and water, air for our lungs, a dry space above the
deep, and carcasses skin-covered and intact. And over this menagerie
of beasts Margaret and I, with our Asiatics under us, rule top-dog.
We are all dogs--there is no getting away from it. And we, the fair-
pigmented ones, by the seed of our ancestry rulers in the high place,
shall remain top-dog over the rest of the dogs. Oh, there is
material in plenty for the cogitation of any philosopher on a
windjammer in mutiny in this Year of our Lord 1913.
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