In The Avatars, AE presents his own picture of what might happen if the socialistic State assumed control. So efficient has it become, that no one is homeless or insecure; everything is taken care of by the State. Yet, there is something in man that rebels against it. «The spirit of man has lost itself in many illusions, and last of all it may lose itself in the most pitiful of any, the illusion of economic security and bodily comfort. These now fail to satisfy it, and there is nothing for it but spiritual adventures. Poet, artist, visionary, all are there. This work written in old age, when his journalistic activities had been abandoned and he had leisure to give to it, contains something so quintessential of his nature that to pick it up is to find oneself for a little space once more in his company.
