But somehow these stunts
of the psychologists and philosophers didn't cut any ice with me just
then, because I'd _experienced_ what they merely _explained_. And
explanation was just a bargain sale. The best things can't be explained
at all. There's no real value in a bargain sale. Arthur had trouble to keep up with me. We were running due east, and
the Earth was turning, therefore, with us. We all three ran together
at _her_ pace--terrific! The moonlight danced along the summits, and
the snow-fields flew like spreading robes, and the forests everywhere,
far and near, hung watching us and booming like a thousand organs. There were uncaged winds about; you could hear them whistling among the
precipices. But the great thing that I knew was--Beauty, a beauty of
the common old familiar Earth, and a beauty that's stayed with me ever
since, and given me joy and strength and a source of power and delight
I'd never guessed existed before. *       *       *       *       *

As we dropped lower into the thicker air of the valley I sobered down. Gradually the ecstasy passed from me. We slowed up a bit. The lights
and the houses and the sight of the hotel where people were dancing in
a stuffy ballroom, all this put blotting-paper on something that had
been flowing. Now you'll think this an odd thing too--but when we reached the village
street, I just took Arthur's hand and shook it and said good-night and
went up to bed and slept like a two-year-old till morning. And from
that day to this I've never set eyes on the boy again. Perhaps it's difficult to explain, and perhaps it isn't. I can explain
it to myself in two lines--I was afraid to see him. I was afraid he
might "explain." I was afraid he might explain "away." I just left a
note--he never replied to it--and went off by a morning train. Can
you understand that? Because if you can't you haven't understood
this account I've tried to give of the experience Arthur gave me. Well--anyway--I'll just let it go at that. Arthur's a director now in his father's wholesale chemical business,
and I--well, I'm doing better than ever in the buying and selling of
exchange between banks in New York City as before. But when I said I was still drawing dividends on my Swiss investment,
I meant it. And it's not "scenery." Everybody gets a thrill from
"scenery." It's a darned sight more than that. It's those little
wayward patches of blue on a cloudy day; those blue pools in the sky
just above Trinity Church steeple when I pass out of Wall Street into
Lower Broadway; it's the rustle of the sea-wind among the Battery
trees; the wash of the waves when the Ferry's starting for Staten
Island, and the glint of the sun far down the Bay, or dropping a bit of
pearl into the old East River. And sometimes it's the strip of cloud
in the west above the Jersey shore of the Hudson, the first star, the
sickle of the new moon behind the masts and shipping. But usually it's
something nearer, bigger, simpler than all or any of these. It's just
the certainty that, when I hurry along the hard stone pavements from
bank to bank, I'm walking on the--Earth. It's just that--_the Earth_! V

A DESERT EPISODE


1

"Better put wraps on now. The sun's getting low," a girl said. It was the end of a day's expedition in the Arabian Desert, and they
were having tea. A few yards away the donkeys munched their _barsim_;
beside them in the sand the boys lay finishing bread and jam. Immense,
with gliding tread, the sun's rays slid from crest to crest of the
limestone ridges that broke the huge expanse towards the Red Sea. By
the time the tea-things were packed the sun hovered, a giant ball of
red, above the Pyramids. It stood in the western sky a moment, looking
out of its majestic hood across the sand. With a movement almost
visible it leaped, paused, then leaped again. It seemed to bound
towards the horizon; then, suddenly, was gone. "It _is_ cold, yes," said the painter, Rivers. And all who heard
looked up at him because of the way he said it. A hurried movement ran
through the merry party, and the girls were on their donkeys quickly,
not wishing to be left to bring up the rear. They clattered off. The
boys cried; the thud of sticks was heard; hoofs shuffled through the
sand and stones. In single file the picnickers headed for Helouan, some
five miles distant. And the desert closed up behind them as they went,
following in a shadowy wave that never broke, noiseless, foamless,
unstreaked, driven by no wind, and of a volume undiscoverable. Against
the orange sunset the Pyramids turned deep purple. The strip of silvery
Nile among its palm trees looked like rising mist. In the incredible
Egyptian afterglow the enormous horizons burned a little longer, then
went out. The ball of the earth--a huge round globe that bulged--curved
visibly as at sea. It was no longer a flat expanse; it turned. Its
splendid curves were realised. "Better put wraps on; it's cold and the sun is low"--and then the
curious hurry to get back among the houses and the haunts of men. No
more was said, perhaps, than this, yet, the time and place being what
they were, the mind became suddenly aware of that quality which ever
brings a certain shrinking with it--vastness; and more than vastness:
that which is endless because it is also beginningless--eternity. A
colossal splendour stole upon the heart, and the senses, unaccustomed
to the unusual stretch, reeled a little, as though the wonder was
more than could be faced with comfort. Not all, doubtless, realised
it, though to two, at least, it came with a staggering impact there
was no withstanding. For, while the luminous greys and purples crept
round them from the sandy wastes, the hearts of these two became
aware of certain common things whose simple majesty is usually dulled
by mere familiarity. Neither the man nor the girl knew for certain
that the other felt it, as they brought up the rear together; yet
the fact that each _did_ feel it set them side by side in the same
strange circle--and made them silent. They realised the immensity of
a moment: the dizzy stretch of time that led up to the casual pinning
of a veil; to the tightening of a stirrup strap; to the little speech
with a companion; the roar of the vanished centuries that have ground
mountains into sand and spread them over the floor of Africa; above
all, to the little truth that they themselves existed amid the whirl of
stupendous systems all delicately balanced as a spider's web--that they
were _alive_. For a moment this vast scale of reality revealed itself, then
hid swiftly again behind the débris of the obvious. The universe,
containing their two tiny yet important selves, stood still for an
instant before their eyes. They looked at it--realised that they
belonged to it. Everything moved and had its being, _lived_--here in
this silent, empty desert even more actively than in a city of crowded
houses.