| "Such endeavoring in hardship, such questing, do you see? It is a quest, they cannot help it, they must do it, it's the very essence of their lives, but with it they do keep us quick, palpitant, our sap does flow, we warm and turn for more brave sunlight into their paths which do go on and on forever it seems and seeming here is all that must occur. We reach for tales and news of them, for last word and final glimpse of them dissolving into jungle, over mountain, across the desert or the vasty sea as we would for precious water, for juicy grapes, more, we ever reach for them preeminent, to know of them, to know that they exist. And if," Cleo paused a moment only and the light in her eyes altered but a moment as if a shadow of a bird had passed them, "if we do not hear from them, no longer hear from them, yet have no record and decree of their extremity, then they do not die for us, they are alive and live always, imperiled, making existence bearable, going on and on though we rationally know this cannot be so we feel it so we believe in their persistence as in their prevalence and prevalence is a song surpassing to lift us from our knees and believing is a hunger and a need and is more strong, and lasting, than any cold gate of logic firmly set in stone foundations of ratiocination." |