“Next evening the atmosphere had all disappeared, and we saw only the water, just a round whirling jewel, like a turquoise with white poles.

“Next evening we saw the places where the rock showed through. We have learned to call them continents and islands. At first they looked like rough pearl, or like the red earth of the planet Mars, but we soon saw that they were covered with a soft green mist, thicker at the equator and thinner as it spread towards the poles.

“Next evening we studied the green mist. Most of it is leaves, such as lettuce and sequoias, which are coaxed out of the crumbled rock by the sun, but it has veins of pink where leaves have turned into animals. The mist of life was as thin as the bloom on a blueberry, but it was wonderful.

“Hidden in that bloom were little babies so beautiful that they almost make you cry. There were little boys who would die to protect their sisters. There were lovers like Romeo, who didn’t have the sense he was born with, but we couldn’t help liking him. There were sweet girls like Mr. Hardy’s Tess, who was hanged because she couldn’t help loving. There were strong men who work hard all their lives for their families or their countries. There were beautiful old men who tell you important things. There were mothers with faces so radiant that I guess that must be where God shows through.

“But over in Europe we saw a bloody war going on, and none of us could explain it. Some said it was the Kaiser’s doing, but at that distance he looked so little that I could not believe it. It seemed to me that they were fighting for food, and I came to the conclusion that if there are more folks than our star can feed comfortably, why, people ought to stop breeding boys to be shot down like rabbits.

“But when the valedictorian talked like this the whole class was ready to mob her. They said she called them rabbits. They said that her dear old father ought to be ashamed of such a spitfire.

“Those of you who heard Horatio last week remember that he thought the United States ought to take a hand in this war. He said that the only way to teach the Germans anything was to explode more nitrogen than they exploded. You see, Horatio has studied chemistry, and I haven’t. Just now he is smiling at me from the back of the room, waiting to see what a little ignoramus who doesn’t know chemistry is going to say about war.

“Well, I am not going to say anything about it, because it stands to reason that 

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