th, of that cold, whiffling air. To be no longer
able to love! It seemed incredible, too grim to bear; yet it was true!
To become powder, and the wind; no more to feel the sunlight; to be loved
no more! To become a whiffling noise, cold, without one's self! To
drift on the breath of that noise, homeless! Up here, there were not even
those little velvet, grey-white flower-comrades we had plucked. No life!
Nothing but the creeping wind, and those great rocky heights, whence came
the sound of falling-symbols of that cold, untimely state into which we,
too, must pass. Never more to love, nor to be loved! One could but turn
to the earth, and press one's face to it, away from the wild loveliness.
Of what use loveliness that must be lost; of what use loveliness when one
could not love? The earth was warm and firm beneath the palms of the
hands; but there still came the sound of the impartial wind, and the
careless roar of the stories falling.

Below, in those valleys amongst the living trees and grass, was the
comradeship of unnumbered life, so that to pass out into Peace, to step
beyond, to die, seemed but a brotherly act, amongst all those others; but
up here, where no creature breathed, we saw the heart of the desert that
stretches before each little human soul. Up here, it froze the spirit;
even Peace seemed mocking--hard as a stone. Yet, to try and hide, to
tuck one's head under one's own wing, was not possible in this air so
crystal clear, so far above incense and the narcotics of set creeds, and
the fevered breath of prayers and protestations. Even to know that
between organic and inorganic matter there is no gulf fixed, was of no
peculiar comfort. The jealous wind came creeping over the lifeless
limestone, removing even the poor solace of its warmth; one turned from
it, desperate, to look up at the sky, the blue, burning, wide, ineffable,
far sky.

Then slowly, without reason, that icy fear passed into a feeling, not of
joy, not of peace, but as if Life and Death were exalted into what was
neither life nor death, a strange and motionless vibration, in which one
had been merged, and rested, utterly content, equipoised, divested of
desire, endowed with life and death.

But since this moment had come before its time, we got up, and, close
together, marched on rather silently, in the hot sun.
1910.

MY DISTANT RELATIVE

Though I had not seen my distant relative for years--not, in fact, since
he was