I sat
down on my porch with a nameless content. I looked off across the
countryside. I saw the evening shadows fall, and the moon come up. And I
wanted nothing I had not. And finally sleep swept in resistless waves
upon me and I stumbled up to bed--and sank into dreamless slumber.
V
THE STORY OF ANNA
It is the prime secret of the Open Road (but I may here tell it aloud)
that you are to pass nothing, reject nothing, despise nothing upon this
earth. As you travel, many things both great and small will come to your
attention; you are to regard all with open eyes and a heart of
simplicity. Believe that everything belongs somewhere; each thing has
its fitting and luminous place within this mosaic of human life. The
True Road is not open to those who withdraw the skirts of intolerance or
lift the chin of pride. Rejecting the least of those who are called
common or unclean, it is (curiously) you yourself that you reject. If
you despise that which is ugly you do not know that which is beautiful.
For what is beauty but completeness? The roadside beggar belongs here,
too; and the idiot boy who wanders idly in the open fields; and the girl
who withholds (secretly) the name of the father of her child.
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