THE BUBBLE BURSTS
the samurai, all who are samurai in Utopia, will know themselves and one another. . . .
(Whup! says a motor brougham, and a policeman stays the traffic with his hand.)
All of us who partake of the samurai would know ourselves and one another!
For a moment I have a vision of this resurrection of the living, of a vague, magnificent answer, of countless myriads at attention, of all that is fine in humanity at attention, round the compass of the earth.
Then that philosophy of individual uniqueness resumes its sway over my thoughts, and my dream of a world's awakening fades.
I had forgotten. . . .
Things do not happen like that. God is not simple, God is not theatrical, the summons comes to each man in its due time for him, with an infinite subtlety of variety. . . .
If that is so, what of my Utopia?
This infinite world must needs be flattened to get it on one retina. The picture of a solid thing, although it is flattened and simplified, is not necessarily a lie. Surely, surely in the end, by degrees and steps, something of this sort, some such understanding as this Utopia must come. First here, then there, single men and then groups of men will fall into line—not indeed with my poor faulty hesitating suggestions, but with a great and comprehensive plan wrought out by many minds and in many tongues. It is just because my plan is faulty, because it mis-states so much and omits so much, that they do not now fall in. It will not be like my dream, the world that is coming. My
327
