ist fell upon the city. From the windows men looked out, and
lo! the beautiful city so made spiritual was vanishing. One by
one the great buildings, the tall spires, the lofty columns had
faded into a white dream, dimmer, fainter, less and less
perceptible, seen through a gentle envelope of whitening haze.
This thing was of a sort almost to make one tremble as he looked
upon it, for the city which had been silver had turned to mist,
and the mist seemed fair to turn into a dream. There are those
who say it did become a dream, and afterward descended. For
wanderers in desert countries tell that at times they have seen
some far city of dreams, alluringly beautiful, but evanescent,
intangible, unattainable, trembling and floating upon the
wavering air.

Now when I saw the city thus fade away and disappear, I sat down
at my table, and, as many men did that night, I wondered much at
what I had seen. For surely the soul of the city had arisen.
Then the Singing Mouse came and gazed into my face.

"What you have seen is true," said the Singing Mouse. "There is
no city now. It has gone. You have seen it disappear. Its soul
has arisen. This does not often happen, yet it can be, for even
the city has a soul if you can find it.

"But if I say the city has gone, I mean only that it has left
the place where once it was. That which once was, is always,
corporate or not corporate. We err only when we ask to see all
with our eyes, to balance all within our hands. Come with me,
and I will show you where the city went."

So now the Singing Mouse waved its hands, and I saw, though I
knew not where I looked.

I saw a country where the trees grew big and where the wild-fowl
came. It was where the trees had never been felled, nor had the
stones ever been hewn. The sky was blue, and the water was blue,
except where it played and laughed, and there it was white.

There was a small house, of a sort one has never seen, for none
in the cities is like it. The blue smoke curling from the
chimney named it none the less a home. I hardly knew what time
or place we had come upon, for the Singing Mouse, whose voice
seemed high and exalted, spoke as though much was in the past.

"This is a Home," said the Singing Mouse. "Once there were no
homes. In those days there was only one fire, and it was red.
By this man sat. He sought not to see.

"Once a man sat at night and looked up at the heavens, seeking
to know what the stars were saying. He beso