“Everything straight lieth,” murmured the dwarf, contemptuously. “All truth is crooked; time itself is a circle.”

“Thou spirit of gravity!” said I wrathfully, “do not take it too lightly! Or I shall let thee squat where thou squattest, Haltfoot⁠—and I carried thee high !”

“Observe,” continued I, “This Moment! From the gateway, This Moment, there runneth a long eternal lane backwards : behind us lieth an eternity.

“Must not whatever can run its course of all things, have already run along that lane? Must not whatever can happen of all things have already happened, resulted, and gone by?