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336
than the rest of us have been
when it drove against the fl esh
of their lives its strange hard shapes.'
-- `There are contemporaries
of mine, and some of yours, too,
who would be quick to declare
that what you choose to call change
the Utes felt as destruction.
One of our philosophers --
I mean one who came along
a little after your time --
remarked, The Latin language
did not progress when it passed
into Italian. It died.'
Meeker: `And the transition
I tried to bring the Utes through
was like that. No, it won't do.'
He speaks with unexpected
mildness. `Grant that these people
are right, and the destruction
of the Ute life at my hands
was coming -- its destruction
at the hands of other men,
with a far worse aftermath,
was the alternative; and
the alternative happened.'
He adds, in a quiet voice,
`Surely it is obvious
that a choice of agonies
was what the Utes had. I think
to some of them the choice was
too obvious to be borne.
But this smacks of the tedium
of argument. It bores me
to defend myself.' Gazing
into the murk, he goes on,