I felt again the haunting mystery that is over the marsh, along the river through the silent nights, and in its fecund depths, where pearls are wrought among hidden eddies.
Under the gently moving water was the dreamland of the reflections. The dark forests and the ghostly dunes hung low in the realm of unreality. Beyond them the Pleiades and Orion glowed softly in the limitless abyss that held the endless story of the stars.
The Ego, mocking the Infinite with puny dogma, in its minute orbit—a speck between two eternities—recoils in terror from the void beyond the world.
The river bears a secret in its bosom deeper than its pearls. He who learns it has found the melodies that brood among tremulous strings in the human heart.
I meditated, and wondered if I, or the valiant crew of the flatboat, had found the Winding River’s Treasure?
X
THE PLUTOCRATS
The Game Warden and his Deputy