comparatively obscure but
comfortable little planet, on a side street in space--but no matter how
much we study astronomy, nor how fully we are made to feel how many
other worlds there are for people to live on, and how many other people
have lived on this one, we are still interested in ourselves.

The fact that the universe is very large is neither here nor there to
us, in a certain sense. It is a mere matter of size. A man has to live
on it. If he had to live on all of it, it would be different. It
naturally comes to pass that when a human being once discovers that he
is born in a universe like this, his first business in it is to find out
the relation of the nearest, most sympathetic part of it to himself.

After the usual first successful experiment a child makes in making
connection with the universe, the next thing he learns is how much of
the universe there is that is not good to eat. He does not quite
understand it at first--the unswallowableness of things. He soon comes
to the conclusion that, although it is worth while as a general
principle, in dealing with a universe, to try to make the connection, as
a rule, with one's mouth, it cannot be expected to succeed except part
of the time. He looks for another connection. He learns that some things
in this world are merely made to feel, and drop on the floor. He
discovers each of his senses by trying to make some other sense work. If
his mouth waters for the moon, and he tries to smack his lips on a
lullaby, who shall smile at him, poor little fellow, making his sturdy
lunges at this huge, impenetrable world? He is making his connection and
getting his hold on his world of colour and sense and sound, with
infinitely more truth and patience and precision and delight than nine
out of ten of his elders are doing or have ever been able to do, in the
world of books.

The books that were written to be breathed--gravely chewed upon by the
literary infants of this modern day,--who can number them?--books that
were made to live in--vast, open clearings in the thicket of
life--chapters like tents to dwell in under the wide heaven, visited
like railway stations by excursion trains of readers,--books that were
made to look down from--serene mountain heights criticised because
factories are not founded on them--in every reading-room hundreds of
people (who has not seen them?), looking up inspirations in
encyclopaedias, poring over poems for facts, looking in the clouds for