268 OBSERVATIONS OF A RANCHWOMAN 



the crown of the vast domain which lies 

 between the two oceans.' 



Going westward, far from our quiet green 

 vale, while the laden train climbs serpentwise 

 the long grade, lean from the window, and 

 take into your own the spirit of the desert's 

 very self. Put from you the commonplaces 

 of * barrenness ' and * monotony,' open wide 

 the gates of the divine, and the wonder, the 

 majesty, of this matchless scene will enter in. 

 It will be yours for all time. It will flash 

 upon the soul in the waking of troubled 

 nights, in the breathing - spaces of life's 

 driving storm, or when the cry of the 

 human, without or within, urges too fiercely. 

 And it will bear on its spread wings a great 

 and awful calm ; for it is the Spirit of the 

 Desert. 



Yet, pressing closer to Nature's breast 

 than ever before, we are further from her 

 heart. She has neither part nor lot in us. 

 Never was she more aloof, more self- 

 sufficing. 



o 



All that is mortal is behind us, a mere 



