As I say, I nonwired this missive. I got no answer.
The oscilloscope of my mind rippled sadly. Its little line ran straight, then finally shot up with further inquiry:
Who sees that day is the augury of coming night? And who—looking at the darkened sky—sees it to be the daylight of a trillion suns? Who further sees the great initial in the stars themselves—the F for Freedom that I dreamed of in a dream? Whose brain will abide it all? Who will continue our Quest?
And next, I felt my solitude.
If any man is more alone than I in this society I would know it, for I would have met him in the spaces I inhabit.
True, I've seen a few in my distances. And Ricky goes there with me sometimes—as she must.
In another sense, indeed, the whole company of my contemporaries is with me and I am alone only in knowing it.
For the dignity and purpose we dreamed of in the youth of this century has gone. We do our work. We mind our manners. But our young hope has been dimmed by the predictabilities. Hence we all know how temporary we are, how brief our routines, how probably it is futile to quarry or to breed, to build or to wish, to sell or to instruct, to make these civilized exertions.
Camus' plague is on us; it has been here a long while. We call it materialism.
Progress that excludes Man.