Perhaps, indeed, he does not so tenaciously cling to that which he remembers of himself yesterday, and is rather interested, on the whole, in accepting some possibly new transformation of his being. The locality seems to him sufficiently well indicated as being, according to his first impression, simply somewhere in the magic and witchery of space. This address might not be accepted by the government postal service, but even that heretofore indispensable matter in some way fades into comparative insignificance. What does one who has an Arizona sky, and a bewildering shimmer of color afar on the horizon that might be
"A painted ship upon a painted ocean"
or almost anything else,—what does he want of the sublunary detail of eight postal deliveries a day, beginning at half-past seven in the morning, with his first dawn of returning consciousness, and ending with midnight, when he is, very likely, summoned out of his sleep by the rap of a bellboy delivering more mail,—more,—as if he had not been under an avalanche of it all day and had sought refuge in dreamland for the very purpose of escaping the vigilance of his national postal service. But one may as well accept the fact as one from which there is no appeal, that in the heart of civilization he cannot escape its burdens and its penalties. He can only evade them by going to—Adamana, for instance; Adamana, the metropolis of the railroad water-tank, the station, and two bungalows. Even these are too many. One bungalow is enough. He cannot repose in two at the same time; and as for neighbors and news,—has he not the stars and the sunsets? What does Emily Dickinson say?—
"The only news I know
Is bulletins all day
From Immortality."
There are no birds to
"... carol undeceiving things,"
as in Colorado; but there is, instead, intense silence,—a silence so absolutely intense as to be, by a paradox, fairly vocal; and if one does but catch the music of the spheres for which he finds himself listening, it must be that his powers of hearing are defective. One recalls the lines:
"Who loves the music of the spheres