Giants and the Superman

 

I have little doubt that the giant whom Jack killed did regard himself as the Superman. It is likely enough that he considered Jack a narrow and parochial person who wished to frustrate a great forward movement of the life-force. If (as not unfrequently was the case) he happened to have two heads, he would point out the elementary maxim which declares them to be better than one.  He would enlarge on the subtle modernity of such an equipment, enabling a giant to look at a subject from two points of view, or to correct himself with promptitude. But Jack was the champion of the enduring human standards, of the principle of one man one head and one man one conscience, of the single head and the single heart and the single eye. Jack was quite unimpressed by the question of whether the giant was a particularly gigantic giant.  All he wished to know was whether he was a good giant – that is, a giant who was any good to us. What were the giant’s religious views; what his views on politics and the duties of the citizen?  Was he fond of children – or fond of them only in a dark and sinister sense?  To use a fine phrase for emotional sanity, was his heart in the right place?


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