ON SURVIVING THE IDOLS WE BUILD It is the way of life to be forever building new idols in place of the old.

Into the fabric of these the most of us put so much of ourselves that a little of us dies each time a cherished image crumbles from age or is shattered by some lightning-stroke of truth from a cloud electric with doubt.

This is why we fade and wither as the leaf.

Could we but sweep aside the wreck without dismay and raise a new idol from the overflowing certainty of youth, then indeed should we have eaten from that other tree in Eden, for the defence of which is set the angel with the flaming sword.
But this may not be.

Fatuously we stake our souls on each new creation--deeming that _here_, in sooth, is one that shall endure beyond the end of time.