What should I do if the earth were made of wood, with a paper sky!
I feel about forty years old.
And again I say I know my feeling is not the feeling of forty years. These are the feelings of miserable, wretched youth.
Still more pitiable than the sand and barrenness and the poor unnatural stream is the dry, warped cemetery where the dry, warped people of Butte bury their dead friends. It is a source of satisfaction to me to walk down to this cemetery and contemplate it, and revel in its utter pitiableness.
“It is more pitiable than I and my sand and barrenness and my poor unnatural stream,” I say over and over, and take my comfort.
Its condition is more forlorn than that of a woman young and alone. It is unkempt. It is choked with dust and stones. The few scattered blades of grass look rather ashamed to be seen growing there. A great many of the headstones are of wood and are in a shameful state of decay. Those that are of stone are still more shameful in their hard brightness.
The dry, warped friends of the dry, warped people of Butte are buried in this dusty, dreary, wind-havocked waste. They are left here and forgotten.
The Devil must rejoice in this graveyard.
And I rejoice with the Devil.
It is something for me to contemplate that is more pitiable than I and my sand and barrenness and my unnatural stream.