Chapter III—Two Voices
In a place in which there was total darkness for hours, there was also for hours total silence. Then a voice spoke out of the darkness, no one could have told from where, and said aloud—
"So ends the Empire of Notting Hill. As it began in blood, so it ended in blood, and all things are always the same."
And there was silence again, and then again there was a voice, but it had not the same tone; it seemed that it was not the same voice.
"If all things are always the same, it is because they are always heroic. If all things are always the same, it is because they are always new. To each man one soul only is given; to each soul only is given a little power—the power at some moments to outgrow and swallow up the stars. If age after age that power comes upon men, whatever gives it to them is great. Whatever makes men feel old is mean—an empire or a skin-flint shop. Whatever makes men feel young is great—a great war or a love story. And in the darkest of the books of God there is written a truth that is also a riddle. It is of the new things that men
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