HIS PLACE IN THE WORLD 
in putting on his colors; or to call attention to 
some peculiarity of a parasitical moss growing 
upon a huge live-oak; or to point out how a 
certain piece of roadmaking in progress should 
be done to secure the best results for economy 
or permanancy; or swiftly to note some geo- 
logical sign along the way that proved the 
theory that this beautiful valley hard by the 
Pacific was an arm of the sea not longer ago 
than the day in the winter of 1577 when Sir 
Francis Drake, harassing many seas upon his 
buccaneering voyages, sailed over the very 
ground we were traveling over on his way up 
the great bay of San Francisco. Then swiftly 
backward his thoughts fly to the subject 
under consideration,—perhaps the elusive but 
fascinating phenomena that have their mani- 
festation in the acts of the subliminal self, or 
the curious coincidences of mental telepathy, 
or the survival of the soul after death, or some 
acute problem in sociology, or some topic 
broadly religious or humanitarian. In any 
such discussion, one must steadily be impressed 
by the clarity of his mental vision, by the 
neatness and precision of his language, by the 
cogency of his thought. 
355 
