OUR DKEAMS ARE NAUGHT. 71 



lifting of humanity or for the downthrow of our 

 existing civilization. 



XVII. 



Aug. 8, '02. "Our dreams are naught; our 

 world is but a world of fiction." I arose this 

 morn with the above sentence, half spoken, in 

 my mind. How it came to be there engendered 

 I know not. I only know that I had just 

 awakened from a fitful slumber of many 

 dreams, for I dream much in the early morn of 

 these summer days. And yet, however in- 

 spired, there is much of truth in the sentence 

 quoted. Ten years from now most of us who 

 are living can look back and say that our lives 

 of to-day are such as are portrayed mostly in 

 fiction; while we are assured on first gaining 

 consciousness each morn that our dreams are 

 naught. 



Last evening a new sound of nature fell upon 

 my ear. Several of us were seated on the front 

 porch of the old farm house, enjoying the cool 

 breezes after a day of torrid, sultry heat, Sud- 



