UNUTTERABLE PEACE 163 



mice abounded. Where mice were plentiful, 

 so were snakes; they seemed to live together 

 underground on the best of terms. In summer 

 it was only at night that the snakes emerged 

 and wandered abroad. However, cobras or no 

 cobras, I intended to camp by myself. 



And then — once more the unutterable peace, 

 the sumptuous palace of the night, — the 

 purple curtains of infinity excluding all that 

 made for discord, — the music of the whisper- 

 ing tongues that filled the void. How the 

 limitless, made manifest in the throbbing uni- 

 verse of stars, responds to the infinite which 

 the most insignificant human soul contains. 

 These are the transcendent wonders which the 

 mighty Kant bracketed together. 



An utterance of Shakespeare — embodying 

 one of those cosmic imaginings only he or 

 Goethe could have expressed, came to my 

 mind — " the prophetic soul of the wide world 

 dreaming on things to come." If there be a 

 spirit proper to our globe — a thinking and in- 

 forming spirit — surely the desert should be its 

 habitation. If such ever dwelt where men con- 

 gregate, it does so no longer, for men have 

 no longer leisure to think; they spend their 

 strength in continuous futile labour, the fruits 

 of which are ashes and dust. Leisure, oppor- 



