Terrible women would invent unclean variants of the
men's belief for the elevation of their sisters. Churches and religions would
war over it. Between the hailing and re-starting of an omnibus I foresaw the
scuffles that would arise among half a dozen denominations all professing "the
doctrine of the True Metempsychosis as applied to the world and the New Era";
and saw, too, the respectable English newspapers shying, like frightened kine,
over the beautiful simplicity of the tale. The mind leaped forward a hundred--
two hundred--a thousand years. I saw with sorrow that men would mutilate and
garble the story; that rival creeds would turn it upside down till, at last,
the western world which clings to the dread of death more closely than the
hope of life, would set it aside as an interesting superstition and stampede
after some faith so long forgotten that it seemed altogether new. Upon this I
changed the terms of the bargain that I would make with the Lords of Life and
Death. Only let me know, let me write, the story with sure knowledge that I
wrote the truth, and I would burn the manuscript as a solemn sacrifice. Five
minutes after the last line was written I would destroy it all. But I must be
allowed to write it with absolute certainty.
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