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Title: Deserted
1898

Author: Edward Bellamy

Release Date: September 21, 2007 [EBook #22714]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DESERTED ***

Produced by David Widger

DESERTED

By Edward Bellamy

1898

"What a glorious, all-satisfying country this Nevada desert would be,
if one were only all eyes, and had no need of food, drink, and shelter!
Would n't it, Miss Dwyer? Do you know, I 've no doubt that this is the
true location of heaven. You see, the lack of water and vegetation would
be no inconvenience to spirits, while the magnificent scenery and the
cloudless sky would be just the thing to make them thrive."

"But what I can't get over," responded the young lady addressed, "is
that these alkali plains, which have been described as so dreary and
uninteresting, should prove to be in reality one of the most wonderfully
impressive and beautiful regions in the world. What awful fibbers, or
what awfully dull people, they must have been whose descriptions have
so misled the public! It is perfectly unaccountable. Here I expected to
doze all the way across the desert, while in fact I 've grudged my eyes
time enough to wink ever since I left my berth this morning."

"The trouble is," replied her companion, "that persons in search of
the picturesque, or with much eye for it, are rare travelers along this
route. The people responsible for the descriptions you complain of
are thrifty businessmen, with no idea that there can be any possible
attraction in a country where crops can't be raised, timber cut, or ore
dug up. For my part, I thank the Lord for the beautiful barrenness that
has consecrated this great region to loneliness. Here there will always
be a chance to get out of sight and sound of the swarming millions who
have already left scarcely standing-room for a man in the East. I
wouldn't give much for a country where there are no wildernesses left."

"But I really think it is rather hard to say in just what the beauty of
the desert consists," said Miss Dwyer. "It is so simple. I scribbled two
pages of description in