and these diverse civilizations succeeded each other at intervals of time that the mind cannot conceive." He took out his watch.
Caroline asked if it was already time to go back to the office.
He said it was not, that it was scarcely half-past twelve.
A little girl was making mud pies at the foot of their bench; a little boy of seven or eight years was playing in front of them.

Whilst his mother was sewing on an adjoining bench, he played all alone at being a run-away horse, and with that power of illusion, of which children are capable, he imagined that he was at the same time the horse, and those who ran after him, and those who fled in terror before him.

He kept struggling with himself and shouting: "Stop him, Hi! Hi! This is an awful horse, he has got the bit between his teeth." Caroline asked the question: "Do you think that men were happy formerly ?" Her companion answered: "They suffered less when they were younger.

They acted like that little boy: they played; they played at arts, at virtues, at vices, at heroism, at beliefs, at pleasures; they had illusions which entertained them; they made a noise; they amused themselves.

But now.