258 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



hoped, as I passed beyond the periphery of 

 sound, that instinct and desire might direct their 

 rolling ball of vibrations toward the one whose 

 ear, whether in antenna, or thorax or femoral 

 tympanum had, through untold numbers of past 

 lives, been attuned to its rhythm. 



Two thousand miles north of where I sat, or 

 ten million, five hundred and sixty thousand feet 

 (for, like Bunker Bean's book-keeper, I some- 

 times like to think of things that way), I would 

 look out of the window one morning in days to 

 come, and thrill at the sight of falling flakes. 

 The emotion would very probably be sentiment 

 the memory of wonderful northland snow- / 

 storms, of huge fires, of evenings with Roosevelt,/' 

 when discussions always led to unknowable '> 

 fields, when book after book yielded its phrase 

 or sentence of pure gold thought. On one of the 

 last of such evenings I found a forgotten joy-of- 

 battle-speech of Huxley's, which stimulated two 

 full days and four books re-read while flakes 

 swirled and invisible winds came swiftly around 

 the eaves over the great trophies poussant des 

 soupirs, we longing with our whole souls for an 

 hour of talk with that splendid old fighting scien- 

 tist. 



