The dead are
buried out of sight and others take their places among men; but the
lost lands lie unburied gazing up at the winds; and the lost woods
stand like skeletons all grotesque in the solitude; the very seasons
have fled from them. The very seasons have fled; so that if you look
up to see whether summer has turned to autumn, or if autumn has turned
to winter yet, nothing remains to show you. It is like the eccentric
dream of some strange man, very arresting and mysterious, but lacking
certain things that should be there before you can recognize it as
earthly. It is a mad, mad landscape. There are miles and miles and
miles of it. It is the biggest thing man has done. It looks as though
man in his pride, with all his clever inventions, had made for himself
a sorry attempt at creation.
Indeed when we trace it all back to its origin we find at the
beginning of this unhappy story a man who was only an emperor and
wished to be something more. He would have ruled the world but has
only meddled with it; and his folly has brought misery to millions,
and there lies his broken dream on the broken earth.
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