Behind you spread Europe and Asia;
before you lies the entire ocean. As great as space appears to our eye,
does it not always seem limited as soon as we know that it has a
boundary? Can you not see from our shores, across the Channel, the
streets of Brighton and the fortresses of Provence; do you not always
think of the Mediterranean as an immense blue lake ensconced in rocks,
with promontories covered with falling monuments, yellow sands, swaying
palm-trees and curved bays? But here nothing stops your eye. Thought can
fly as rapidly as the winds, spread out, divagate, and lose itself,
without finding anything but water, or perhaps vague America, nameless
islands, or some country with red fruits, humming-birds and savages; or
the silent twilight of the pole, with its spouting whales; or the great
cities lighted by coloured glass, Japan with its porcelain roofs, and
China with its sculptured staircases and its pagodas decorated with
golden bells.
Thus does the mind people and animate this infinity, of which it tires
so soon, in order that it may appear less vast. One cannot think of the
desert without its caravans, of the ocean without its ships, of the
bowels of the earth without evoking the treasures that they are supposed
to conceal.
Pages:
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116