ul.
I have gone about and looked upon the face of the earth. I have
demanded of smoking villages sweeping past and of the mountains and of
the plains and of the middle of the sea: "Where are those that belong
to me? Will I ever travel near enough, far enough?" I have gone up and
down the world--seen the countless men and women in it, standing on
either side of their Abyss of Circumstance, beckoning and reaching
out. I have seen men and women sleepless, or worn, or old, casting
their bread upon the waters, grasping at sunsets or afterglows,
putting their souls like letters in bottles. Some of them seem to be
flickering their lives out like Marconi messages into a sort of
infinite, swallowing human space.

Always this same wild aimless sea of living. There does not seem to be
a geography for love. My soul answered me: "Did you expect a world to
be indexed? Life is steered by a Wind. Blossoms and cyclones and
sunshine and you and I--all blundering along together." "Let every
seed swell for itself," the Universe has said, in its first fine
careless rapture. God is merely having a good time. Why should I go up
and down a universe crying through it, "Where are those that belong to
me?" I have looked at the stars swung out at me and they have not
answered, and now when I look at the men, I have seemed to see them,
every man in a kind of dull might, rushing, his hands before him,
hinged on emptiness. "You are alone," the heart hath said. "Get up and
be your own brother. The world is a great WHO CARES?"

But when, in the middle of deep, helpless sleep, tossed on the wide
waters, I wake in a ship, feel it trembling all through out there with
my brother's care for me, I know that this is not true. "Around
sunsets, out through the great dark," I find myself saying, "he has
reached over and held me. Out here on this high hill of water, under
this low, touching sky, I sleep."

Sometimes I do not sleep. I lie awake silently, and feel gathered
around. I wonder if I could be lonely if I tried. I touch the button
by my pillow. I listen to great cities tending me. I have found all
the earth paved, or carpeted, or hung, or thrilled through with my
brother's thoughts for me. I cannot hide from love. He has hired
oceans to do my errands. He has made the whole human race my
house-servants. I lie in my berth for sheer joy, thinking of the
strange peoples where the morning is, running to and fro for me, down
under the dark. Next me, the gre