Did you ever make the acquaintance of a fixed star?
I believe astronomers reckon about twenty millions of them in sight, and an infinite possibility of invisible millions, each one of which is a sun, like ours, and may have satellites like our planet.

Suppose you see one of these fixed stars suddenly increase in brightness, and are told that a satellite has fallen into it and is burning up, its career finished, its capacities exhausted?
Curious, is it not; but what does it matter?
Just as much as the burning up of a moth at your candle." Madeleine shuddered a little.

"I cannot get to the height of your philosophy," said she.

"You are wandering among the infinites, and I am finite." "Not at all! But I have faith; not perhaps in the old dogmas, but in the new ones; faith in human nature; faith in science; faith in the survival of the fittest.

Let us be true to our time, Mrs.Lee! If our age is to be beaten, let us die in the ranks.