.. or I
shall scream!"
"Have you ever read the sonnets of George Santayana?... I know most of
them by heart ... let me quote you his best ...
'O world, thou choosest not the better part!
It is not wisdom to be only wise,
And on the inward vision close the eyes,
But it is wisdom to believe the heart.
Columbus found a world, and had no chart
Save one that faith deciphered in the skies
To trust the soul's invincible surmise
Was all his science and his only art.
Our knowledge is a torch of smoky pine
That lights the pathway but one step ahead
Across a void of mystery and dread.
Bid, then, the tender light of faith to shine
By which alone the mortal heart is led
Unto the thinking of the thought divine!'"
* * * * *
"I wish I had written that!" I said, in a hushed, awed voice, after a
moment's silence....
* * * * *
"Now kiss me good-night and go to your tent ... I feel restless,
troubled in spirit, to-night," she said, continuing:
"Perhaps I have been too harsh with Penton....
"He is steering on a chartless sea with no compass....
"No wonder he, and all radicals and pioneers in human thought, blunder
ridiculously....
"The conservative world has its charts, its course well mapped out....
"I suppose I am not strong enough, big enough, for him.
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