The Most Futile Thing In This World

The Mystery Of Life--its Inexplicability, Beauty, Cruelty, Tenderness, Folly . . . Has Occupied The Greater Part Of My Waking Thoughts; And In Reverence Or Rage Or Irony, As The Moment Or Situation Might Dictate, I Have Pondered And Even Demanded Of Cosmic Energy To Know Why.

The Thing That Impressed Me Then As Now About New York… Was The Sharp, And At The Same Time Immense, Contrast It Showed Between The Dull And The Shrewd, The Strong And The Weak, The Rich And The Poor, The Wise And The Ignorant… The Strong, Or Those Who Ultimately Dominated, Were So Very Strong, And The Weak So Very, Very Weak - And So Very, Very Many.

Our Civilization Is Still In A Middle Stage, Scarcely Beast, In That It Is No Longer Wholly Guided By Instinct; Scarcely Human, In That It Is Not Yet Wholly Guided By Reason.

Let No One Underestimate The Need Of Pity. We Live In A Stony Universe Whose Hard, Brilliant Forces Rage Fiercely.

We Who Feel That Justice Is Not Being Done Have But One Thing To Do: That Is Fight, By Argument, By Example, By Insistence On Fair Play Wherever We Have The Power To Do So. The Rest Is In The Hands Of The Lord, Or Nature, Which Swings, Apparently, From One Extreme To Another.