“Look at the dome of that cathedral,” I went on. “Could you set to work and, in a single night, build a vast piece of architecture like that, so many times higher than yourself?”
“That ain’t no cathedral,” said he.
“Have you ever seen a cathedral?” I asked.
“No.”
“Well, then, how do you know it isn’t?”
He could give me no reply and I continued in my enthusiasm—
“Look at that street, cut through all obstacles, leading straight as though a thousand instruments of latter-day science had been used in the making of it. Look at this avenue turning to right and to left. Do you see that great cluster of buildings, a very parliament of houses, set round a vast space that would shame the great square of St. Peter’s, in Rome. Only look at the——”
I turned round and he had gone. I could see his figure retreating in the distance. Every moment he turned his head, looking round, as one who is pursued yet fears to show his cowardice by running away. He thought I was mad, I have no doubt. Every one thinks you mad when you say the moon is a dead world or the sun is a fiery furnace. To be sane, you must only remark upon the coldness of the moon, or the warmth of the sun. To be sane, you must speak of the things of this world only in terms of people’s bodies. They do not understand unless.
And so, when the man left me, I was alone, looking over the wonderful city. For an hour then, I amused myself by naming the different streets, by assigning to the various buildings the uses to which it seemed they might be put.