UNUTTERABLE PEACE 163 



mice abounded. Where mice were plentiful, 

 so were snakesj 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- 



