A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



newly and take on new significances. The Doc 

 tor and I stood on a high mountain, looking at 

 the human race. He had dressed himself in a 

 Roman toga, He wore a wreath around his 

 head and had a copy of the &quot; Bucolica &quot; under his 

 arm. &quot; You are permitted,&quot; he said, &quot; to see the 

 whole of mankind. Few men can grasp it until 

 the scales have fallen from their eyes.&quot; 



They were running about in all directions like 

 frenzied ants, but from each one of them streamed 

 a little silver thread, that like a fine ray of light 

 went tremulously upward and was lost in the air. 

 These myriad pencils intermingled, but were never 

 confused. &quot; What does it all mean ? &quot; I asked. 



&quot;That is the silver cord to the Beyond,&quot; he 

 said. &quot; Every man brings it with him and is 

 fastened by it. You will see it brightest over the 

 school-houses and the nurseries. Only a few men 

 have been permitted to see it as you see it, and 

 they generally mistook it. Wordsworth called it 

 a c trailing cloud. Swedenborg said it was the 

 umbilicus of the Unseen. Reichenbach called it 

 odic force. It is only the chain of the Eternal.&quot; 



&quot; But what are they all trying to do with it? &quot; 



&quot; Get rid of it,&quot; said the Doctor. &quot; It ham 

 pers them. What they want is freedom.&quot; 



&quot; And do they succeed ? &quot; 



&quot; Yes. They work all their lives to sever it, 

 and then they break the circuit of the Beyond. 

 But they are free. It s too bad, for that is the 

 only means by which the Beyond can communi 

 cate with them.&quot; 



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