“Said it and went strutting away, and proud. A child told it to me....
“This is the truth. I am gone out of the house of the scholars, and have slammed to the door behind me....
“I am too hot, and burning with my own thoughts; oft will it take away my breath. I must into the open and out of all dusty rooms.
“But they sit cool in cool shadows; they wish in all things to be but spectators, and guard themselves lest they sit where the sun burns the steps.
“Like those who stand upon the street and stare at the people who go by; so they wait also and stare at the thoughts that others have thought.
“If one touches them with the hands, they make dust around them like meal-sacks, and involuntarily; but who could guess that their dust comes from corn and the golden rapture of the summer fields?”
“Too far away into the future I flew; a horror overcame me. And as I looked around me, there was Time my only companion.
“Then I flew backward, homeward—and ever faster: so I came to you, men of the present, and to the Land of Culture.
“For the first time I brought an eye for you, and good wishes; truly, with longing in my heart I came.