at quiet throb of the engine--between
me and infinite space--beating comfortably. I cannot help answering to
it--this soft and mighty reaching out where I lie.

My thoughts follow along the great twin shafts my brother holds me
with. I wonder about them. I wish to do and share with them.

Were I a spirit I would go
Where the murmuring axles of the screws
Along their whirling aisles
Break through the hold,
Where they lift the awful shining thews
Of Thought,
Of Trade,
And strike the Sea
Till the scar of London lies
Miles and miles upon its breast
Out in the West.

As I lie and look out of my port-hole and watch the starlight stepping
along the sea I let my soul go out and visit with it. The ship I am
in--a little human beckoning between two deserts. Out through my
port-hole I seem to see other ships, ghosts of great cities--an ocean
of them, creeping through their still huge picture of the night, with
their low hoarse whistles meeting one another, whispering to one
another under the stars.

"And they are all mine," I say, "hastening gently."

I lie awake thinking of it. I let my whole being float out upon the
thought of it. The bare thought of it, to me, is like having lived a
great life. It is as if I had been allowed to be a great man a minute.
I feel rested down through to before I was born. The very stars, after
it, seem rested over my head. I have gathered my universe about me. It
is as if I had lain all still in my soul and some beautiful eternal
sleep--a minute of it--had come to me and visited me. All men are my
brothers. Is not the world filled with hastening to me? What is there
my brother has not done for me? From the uttermost parts of the
morning, all things that are flow fresh and beautiful upon my flesh.
He has laid my will on the heavens. His machines are like the tides
that do not stop. They are a part of the vast antennae of the earth.
They have grown themselves upon it. Like wind and vapor and dust, they
are a part of the furnishing of the earth. If I am cold and seek furs
Alaska is as near as the next snowdrift. My brother has caused it to
be so. Everywhere is five cents away. I take tea in Pekin with a spoon
from Australia and a saucer from Dresden. With the handle of my knife
from India and the blade from Sheffield, I eat meat from Kansas.
Thousands of miles bring me spoonfuls. The taste in my mouth, five or
six continents have made for me. The isles of the sea are on