Author Information
At Some Caverns
"Friends, you have gone about this work all wrong.
"You think in shortest terms; I think in long.
"More martyrs just mean more converts again.
"Their faith is a bulwark, sturdy and strong;
"therefore, it must be undermined within.
"The best way?---Help them build an institution,
"which will serve as platform for your solution.
"Mankind rebels from all authority;
"you find this noted through all history;
"sometimes the most horrific tragedy
"arises from this search for novelty:
"the shallow glitter of some innovation
"can cause a tragic demoralization.
"Consider: finding some cheap forgery,
"some of them will succumb to the temptation
"of making concerted and scholarly
"effort to find a better explanation:
"the way dominion reached for domination
"upon the earth, fresh from the Lord's creation.
"Thus, always, it will be the first ambition
"to leave the harbor of reality
"for seas of all too mystic intuition.
"This, given over to imagination,
"will grant, to fakes, an authenticity
"of shallow---sometimes, wild---interpretation;
"as, for example, how a man should live---
"grasping for some clever alternative
"against established (thus, less novel) fact.
"For now, conceal your slyly fictive pages
"in desert sands. They will be found, intact;
"then heralded as someone's brave New Age's
"most precious and profound discovery.
"Error like this has been easily spread
"since I once asked those first fools 'Hath God said?'"
