Peripatetic Meditations 



only thought. It evidently failed to find things 

 as it wished, so turned about and hid itself in 

 the soft mud. I have known people to play tur- 

 tle in this fashion. Although a May day, the 

 air is too cool, the sky too cloudy, the breeze too 

 fresh, and so after a sniff from their doorway, 

 ihey turn about and wallow in the dust and 

 stufBness of their houses. As if May days 

 were every days and life without end. 



Whichever way I turn I find an Indian has 

 preceded me. Try as I may, I can leave no en- 

 during trace, and yet little the Indian did that 

 there is not a record of remaining. It is easy 

 to fill my pockets with relics of these almost for- 

 gotten people, but not so readily can I picture 

 them as they were. The world then was Na- 

 ture's world and they were Nature's people. 

 They wrought their commonest utensils in 

 stone; we, in wood. They lived a purposeful 

 life — ^to do otherwise was to court death ; we too 

 often lead a meaningless one. Else, why have 

 coined the word "artificial?" Here are three 

 arrow-points, one each of jaspar, quartz and 

 slate, but the shafts have perished with the bow, 

 and the archer's bones are dust. How many of 



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