I thought after all I had rather belong to a race of people that came
from skulless vertebrae in the dim Laurentian period, that wiggled
without knowing they were wiggling, that began to develope and came up
by a gradual developement until they struck this gentleman in the dugout
coming up slowly--up--up--up--until, for instance, they produced such a
man as Shakespeare--he who harvested all the fields of dramatic thought,
and after whom all others have been only gleaners of straw, he who found
the human intellect dwelling in a hut, touched it with the wand of his
genius and it became a palace--producing him and hundreds of others I
might mention--with the angels of progress leaning over the far horizon
beckoning this race of work and thought--I had rather belong to a race
commencing at the skulless vertebrae producing the gentleman in the
dugout and so on up, than to have descended from a perfect pair, upon
which the Lord has lost money from that day to this. I had rather belong
to a race that is going up than to one that is going down. I would
rather belong to one that commenced at the skulless vertebrae and
started for perfection, than to belong to one that started from
perfection and started for the skulless vertebrae.