Page:Life in a thousand worlds.djvu/273

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LIFE IN A THOUSAND WORLDS.

As I left them I saw that my last words brought no relief to their faces and, after a long silence, they nervously discussed the whole affair, not being able to account for the exceptional experience through which they had just passed.

I visited, in a form invisible, the mansions of the rich and found that the most choice ornaments on their parlor shelves consisted of vials of soil or dirt, and in the homes of the most wealthy only I saw flowering plants.

It chanced that I visited this world at the graduating period of the greater schools. This gave me privilege to hear an oration on "The Soil and the Diamond," a synopsis of which I will translate as correctly as I can. It will be remembered that I must use terms and style suitable to our language.

"O beautiful soil! Thou art but a type of thy maker invisible. Thou dost give birth to countless forms and nursest them all from thy own bosom. From the atom thou bringest the oak, and all its children fall back into thy arms for succor. From thy own heart spring the infinite types of vegeta-