At The Core Of The Universe, The

Man Is Dragged Hither And Thither, At One Moment By The Blind Instincts Of The Forest, At The Next By The Strange Intuitions Of A Higher Self Whose Rationale He Doubts And Does Not Understand.

Since The First Human Eye Saw A Leaf In Devonian Sandstone And A Puzzled Finger Reached To Touch It, Sadness Has Lain Over The Heart Of Man. By This Tenuous Thread Of Living Protoplasm, Stretching Backward Into Time, We Are Linked Forever To Lost Beaches Whose Sands Have Long Since Hardened Into Stone. The Stars That Caught Our Blind Amphibian Stare Have Shifted Far Or Vanished In Their Courses, But Still That Naked, Glistening Thread Winds Onward. No One Knows The Secret Of Its Beginning Or Its End. Its Forms Are Phantoms. The Thread Alone Is Real; The Thread Is Life.

Like The Herd Animals We Are, We Sniff Warily At The Strange One Among Us.

The Great Artist, Whether He Be Musician, Painter, Or Poet, Is Known For This Absolute Unexpectedness.

I Am Older Now, And Sleep Less, And Have Seen Most Of What There Is To See And Am Not Very Much Impressed Any More, I Suppose, By Anything.