Out from every door steps a convict, who stands at
attention, his face to the wall.
At a word of command the convicts fall into gangs of twelve,
and march down the stone stairs, out into the yard, where they
line up against the walls.
Another word of command, and they file mechanically, but not
more mechanically than their warders, into the Chapel.
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.
_Enough!_
SPIRITS SINISTER AND IRONIC.
_'Tis more than even we can bear._
SPIRIT OF THE PITIES.
_Would we had never come!_
SPIRIT OF THE YEARS.
_Brother, 'tis well_
_To have faced a truth however hideous,_
_However humbling. Gladly I discipline_
_My pride by taking back those pettish doubts_
_Cast on the soundness of the central thought_
_In Mr. Hardy's drama. He was right._
_Automata these animalculae_
_Are--puppets, pitiable jackaclocks._
_Be't as it may elsewhere, upon this planet_
_There's no free will, only obedience_
_To some blind, deaf, unthinking despotry_
_That justifies the horridest pessimism._
_Frankly acknowledging all this, I beat_
_A quick but not disorderly retreat._
He re-trajects himself into Space, followed closely by his
Chorus, and by the Spirit and Chorus of the Pities, the
Spirits Sinister and Ironic with their Choruses, Rumours,
Spirit Messengers, and the Recording Angel.
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