elow the sea. The members
of the club, grouped in twos and threes, discussed the day's
successes, compared specimens, exchanged field notes, or watched the
western horizon in sympathetic silence.

It had been a great day for me. I had seen a dozen new forms of life,
had caught a hundred fragments of the song of nature by the sea; and
my mind was seething with meanings that crowded in. I do not remember
to which of my learned friends I addressed my questions on this
occasion, but he surely was one of the most learned. For he took up
all my fragments of dawning knowledge in his discourse, and welded
them into a solid structure of wisdom, with windows looking far down
the past and a tower overlooking the future. I was so absorbed in my
private review of creation that I hardly realized when we landed, or
how we got into the electric cars, till we were a good way into the
city.

At the Public Library I parted from my friends, and stood on the broad
stone steps, my jar of specimens in my hand, watching the car that
carried them glide out of sight. My heart was full of a stirring
wonder. I was hardly conscious of the place where I stood, or of the
day, or the hour. I was in a dream, and the familiar world around me
was transfigured. My hair was damp with sea spray; the roar of the
tide was still in my ears. Mighty thoughts surged through my dreams,
and I trembled with understanding.

I sank down on the granite ledge beside the entrance to the Library,
and for a mere moment I covered my eyes with my hand. In that moment I
had a vision of myself, the human creature, emerging from the dim
places where the torch of history has never been, creeping slowly into
the light of civilized existence, pushing more steadily forward to the
broad plateau of modern life, and leaping, at last, strong and glad,
to the intellectual summit of the latest century.

What an awful stretch of years to contemplate! What a weighty past to
carry in memory! How shall I number the days of my life, except by the
stars of the night, except by the salt drops of the sea?

But hark to the clamor of the city all about! This is my latest home,
and it invites me to a glad new life. The endless ages have indeed
throbbed through my blood, but a new rhythm dances in my veins. My
spirit is not tied to the monumental past, any more than my feet were
bound to my grandfather's house below the hill. The past was only my
cradle, and now it cannot hold me, because I am