14 CALIFORNIA DESERT TRAILS 



after all, to explain the strange attraction of the 

 desert. Space, solitude, quiet — our minds at their 

 best are tuned to these, and when they find them 

 they expand like the anemone welcoming its native 

 tide. The merely objective things of the desert are 

 another and transitory matter: I am speaking of its 

 underlying, undying charm. It is a somewhat awful 

 attribute, with more of subjugation in it than of 

 charm. It disembodies us, takes away what hides us 

 from ourselves. The aged earth speaks now in sol- 

 emn tone to its child, and he must listen. No friendly 

 tree or buoyancy of wave meets the daunted eye 

 with encouragement or excuse for levity. Here jus- 

 tice is the word, not mercy. The universe seems lis- 

 tening for your word, and appraising you by your 

 silence. If there comes a sound it is so momentary 

 as only to startle, swallowed up instantly in the 

 waiting void — the thin, single note of the cactus 

 wren, one of the lonesomest of sounds, more lost 

 and eerie than the midnight bleat of sheep on 

 Cumberland fells. 



Is there attraction in this, then? To most people, 

 No: to a few, Yes: and Yes to an increasing number, 

 I think and hope, as the loud roar grows louder; the 

 times more complex and out of joint; the strife of 

 tongues more clever and useless; simplicity, the 

 touchstone of good, more than ever reverend yet 

 less than ever revered. 



