eternal significance. "Trumps!" the German soldier may be supposed to say as he breaks the baby's body into pieces; and "Our trick, I think," we hope to retort some day, when the German army lies shattered before us.
But no eternal significance in any of it, in either event; only a game; in which mercy and justice have no more title to win, because they are mercy and justice, than the king of hearts is entitled to win, clubs being trumps.
It is a possible way of looking at things. The chief argument to be urged against it is a practical one: that it would make the world so much more horrible than it is already. It would destroy all art, for art is but a search for that hidden beauty which is God. It would render all the things which we confess to be fine meaningless, for, ultimately,
