The Queer Side of Things.
OME time ago, amid the monotonous ether of space, long before the existence of planets and all that, two spirits were strolling along in company.
In aspect the two companions differed in the most pronounced way. On the brow of the one, who might have passed for the elder, appeared the cold and passionless calculation of science; the eye was deeply reflective, but unimpassioned; the demeanour was grave and deliberate. We may as well speak of this spirit henceforth as William.
The younger, whom we will call James, was of a very different stamp, for in him the quick and well opened eye, the mobile brow and mouth, and the eager, voice, denoted enthusiasm and enterprise.
As we have remarked, the scene was monotonous; it is easily described: stretching away and away for ever in every direction spread space and utter and intense darkness.
What wonder, then, that, surrounded by so dull and uninteresting a monotony, living through an indefinite period enlivened by no divisions of time, the soul of James should have cast about within itself for some recreative topic, some object on which to expend its imaginative energies. In truth James was a dreamer—a wild and fantastic dreamer, if you will. Sitting alone, perhaps, for an uninterrupted period of many cycles, he would follow with ever more hurrying mental footsteps the bewildering paths of inventive speculation. In the midst of that dull void he would conceive the existence of many things; he would fill space with entities, psychical and even material.
For many æons the fear of ridicule had deterred him from breathing a word or all these phantasies to his more severe and calculating companion; for to William's cold and precise reason, that which existed was all that ever could exist; and stern, philosophic argument had convinced him that space and darkness were everything which could ever possibly be designed or executed.
This was no grudging conservatism, nor prejudice against new things. No, he had worked the matter out in the light of pure reason and scientific argument, and he knew.
"William," said James, at length, impelled by an impulse which he could no longer restrain, yet with the detectable nervousness and hesitation of one who fears reproach or ridicule—"William, has it never crossed your mind that the surroundings of our existence are a little—that is, a trifle—monotonous and samey?"
He stopped suddenly, abashed, and fidgeted uncomfortably from foot to foot, as the keen eye of the other, wide with astonishment, was fixed upon him.
"I fear I do not catch your meaning, James," at length replied the wiser spirit.
