THE GRIST OF THE GODS 



ABOUT all we have in mind when we think 

 of the earth is this thin pellicle of soil with 

 which the granite framework of the globe is clothed 

 — a red and brown film of pulverized and oxidized 

 rock, scarcely thicker, relatively, than the paint or 

 enamel which some women put on their cheeks, and 

 which the rains often wash away as a tear washes 

 off the paint and powder. But it is the main thing 

 to us. Out of it we came and unto it we return. 

 "Earth to earth, and dust to dust." The dust be- 

 comes warm and animated for a little while, takes 

 on form and color, stalks about recuperating itself 

 from its parent dust underfoot, and then fades and 

 is resolved into the original earth elements. We 

 are built up out of the ground quite as literally as 

 the trees are, but not quite so immediately. The 

 vegetable is between us and the soil, but our depend- 

 ence is none the less real. "As common as dust" 

 is one of our sayings, but the common, the universal, 

 is always our mainstay in this world. When we 

 see the dust turned into fruit and flowers and grain 

 by that intangible thing called vegetable life, or into 

 the bodies of men and women by the equally mys- 

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