THE VOICE OF THE DESERT 



222 



being merely the pretty, is easy and reassuring. The sub- 

 lime, on the other hand, is touched with something which 

 inspires awe. It is large and powerful; it carries with it the 

 suggestion that it might overwhelm us if it would. By these 

 definitions there is no doubt which is the right word for the 

 desert. In intimate details, as when its floor is covered after 

 a spring rain with the delicate little ephemeral plants, it is 

 pretty. But such embodiments of prettiness seem to be only 

 tolerated with affectionate contempt by the region as a 

 whole. As a whole the desert is, in the original sense of the 

 word, "awful." Perhaps one feels a certain boldness in un- 

 dertaking to live with it and a certain pride when one dis- 

 covers that one can. 



I am not suggesting that everyone should listen to the 

 voice of the desert and listen to no other. For a nation 

 which believes, perhaps rightly enough, that it has many 

 more conquests yet to make, that voice preaches a doctrine 

 too close to quietism. But I am suggesting that the voice 

 of the desert might well be heard occasionally among the 

 others. To go "up to the mountain" or "into the desert" has 

 become part of the symbolical language. If it is good to 

 make occasionally what the religious call a "retreat," there 

 is no better place than the desert to make it. Here if any- 

 where the most familiar realities recede and others come 

 into the foreground of the mind. 



A world traveler once said that every man owed it to 

 himself to see the tropics at least once in his life. Only 

 there can he possibly realize how completely nature can 

 fulfill certain potentialities and moods which the temper- 

 ate regions only suggest. I have no doubt that he was right. 

 Though I have never got beyond the outer fringe of the 

 tropical lands, I hope that some day I shall get into their 



