It seemed to me that it was better to sit in the shelter of the wall and watch the birds than to burrow in the crumbling dust for that small harvest.

Yet I could understand and even appreciate their work, although it is probable that the glow I experienced was in part reflected.

Perhaps my mental attitude, when standing in that sheltered place, and when getting on to the windy wall I looked down on the workers and their work, was merely benevolent.

I had pleasure in their pleasure, and a vague desire for a better understanding, a closer alliance and harmony.

It was the desire that we might all see nature--the globe with all it contains--as one harmonious whole, not as groups of things, or phenomena, unrelated, cast there by chance or by careless or contemptuous gods.