ot, of course, a reformer's idea of happiness: a
reformer's idea of happiness is perpetual attention to everybody's
business but his own. People who are interested academically in other
people's happiness usually succeed in making everybody unhappy. Now, the
Russian's happiness was a poor thing, but his own. In reality he was
wretched and oppressed, and his voice and bearing should have expressed
his misery and hopelessness, instead of a foolish content and a silly
detachment from political affairs. But he is at last emancipated, and,
as was said of Mary's fleecy companion, now contemplate the condemned
thing!

* * *

Liberty, equality, international amity, democracy, the kingdom of heaven
on earth--All that is very well, yet Candide remarked to Dr. Pangloss
when all was said and done, "Let us cultivate our garden."

* * *

There are so many interesting things along the way that I should, I
suppose, be filling a notebook. But why mar the pleasure of a journey by
taking notes? as the good Sylvestre Bonnard inquired. Lovers who truly
love do not keep a diary of their happiness.

* * *

In Phoenix, Arizona, distance lends enchantment to the view. But the
hills are far away, and as I did not visit the Southwest to contemplate
the works of man, however ingenious, I followed the westering sun to
where the mountains come down to the sea. I do not fancy the elevated
parts of New Mexico and Arizona; and as there was no thought of pleasing
me when they were created, I feel free to express a modified rapture in
their contemplation. I should have remembered enough geology to know
that granite is not found in this section, except at the bottom of the
Grand Canyon. The hills I like are made of old-fashioned stuff, not
young upstart tufa and sandstone that was not thought of when the
Laurentians were built. One really cannot have much respect for a rock
that he can kick to pieces. The gay young buttes in this land of quickly
shifting horizons are not without their charm; they look well in
certain lights, and they are decidedly better than no hills at all.
Although immature, they have an air of pretending to be very ancient, to
be the ruins of mountains. They are picturesque and colorful. And I
would swap a league of them for one archaic boulder the size of a
box-car, with a thick coverlet of reindeer moss.

* * *

When I left the train at Pasadena I