up at the sky. I shall
never forget the curious thrill in his voice as he said:

"And THAT was Walt Whitman."

And thus quite absurdly intoxicated by the possibilities of the road, I
let the big full afternoon slip by--I let slip the rich possibilities
of half a hundred farms and scores of travelling people--and as evening
began to fall I came to a stretch of wilder country with wooded hills
and a dashing stream by the roadside. It was a fine and beautiful
country--to look at--but the farms, and with them the chances of dinner,
and a friendly place to sleep, grew momentarily scarcer. Upon the hills
here and there, indeed, were to be seen the pretentious summer homes
of rich dwellers from the cities, but I looked upon them with no great
hopefulness.

"Of all places in the world," I said to myself, "surely none could be
more unfriendly to a man like me."

But I amused myself with conjectures as to what might happen (until the
adventure seemed almost worth trying) if a dusty man with a bag on
his back should appear at the door of one of those well-groomed
establishments. It came to me, indeed, with a sudden deep sense of
understanding, that I should probably find there, as everywhere else,
just men and women. And with that I fell into a sort of Socratic
dialogue with myself:

ME: Having decided that the people in these houses are, after all,
merely men and women, what is the best way of reaching them?

MYSELF: Undoubtedly by giving them something they want and have not.

ME: But these are rich people from the city; what can they want that
they have not?

MYSELF: Believe me, of all people in the world those who want the
most are those who have the most. These people are also consumed with
desires.

ME: And what, pray, do you suppose they desire?

MYSELF: They want what they have not got; they want the unattainable:
they want chiefly the rarest and most precious of all things--a little
mystery in their lives.

"That's it!" I said aloud; "that's it! Mystery--the things of the
spirit, the things above ordinary living--is not that the
essential thing for which the world is sighing, and groaning, and
longing--consciously, or unconsciously?"

I have always believed that men in their innermost souls desire the
highest, bravest, finest things they can hear, or see, or feel in all
the world. Tell a man how he can increase his income and he will be
grateful to you and soon forget you; but show him the highest, most
m