Here, and here alone, I could shape
and create. When my arm was weak and I willed it to be strong, I could
create a roll of muscle on it; and when I understood that, I understood
that I could without any greater miracle give myself ten arms and three
heads.
THE HE-ANCIENT. I also came to understand such miracles. For fifty years
I sat contemplating this power in myself and concentrating my will.
THE SHE-ANCIENT. So did I; and for five more years I made myself into
all sorts of fantastic monsters. I walked upon a dozen legs: I worked
with twenty hands and a hundred fingers: I looked to the four quarters
of the compass with eight eyes out of four heads. Children fled in
amazement from me until I had to hide myself from them; and the
ancients, who had forgotten how to laugh, smiled grimly when they
passed.
THE HE-ANCIENT. We have all committed these follies. You will all commit
them.
THE NEWLY BORN. Oh, do grow a lot of arms and legs and heads for us. It
would be so funny.
THE HE-ANCIENT. My child: I am just as well as I am. I would not lift my
finger now to have a thousand heads.
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