And man, an atom in the ferment, clings desperately to what to him seems stable; nor greets with joy him who hazards that what he grips may be but a broken staff, and, so saying, fails to hold forth a sturdier one.
Earth is a ship, plowing her way through uncharted oceans of space wherein are strange currents, hidden shoals and reefs, and where blow the unknown winds of Cosmos.
If to the voyagers, painfully plotting their course, comes one who cries that their charts must be remade, nor can tell WHY they must be--that man is not welcome--no! Therefore it is that men have grown chary of giving testimony upon mysteries.

Yet knowing each in his own heart the truth of that vision he has himself beheld, lo, it is that in whose reality he most believes.
The spot where I had encamped was of a singular beauty; so beautiful that it caught the throat and set an ache within the breast--until from it a tranquillity distilled that was like healing mist.
Since early March I had been wandering.

It was now mid-July.

And for the first time since my pilgrimage had begun I drank--not of forgetfulness, for that could never be--but of anodyne for a sorrow which had held fast upon me since my return from the Carolines a year before.
No need to dwell here upon that--it has been written.

Nor shall I recite the reasons for my restlessness--for these are known to those who have read that history of mine.