(4 of 4)
Wandering, yearning, curious, with feverish questions, with the sad, incessant refrain, Wherefore unsatisfied soul? and Whither 0 mocking life?, the generations since Adam had searched for this fulfillment. The voyage of the mind's return to reason's early paradise, "to realms of budding bibles," to innocent intuitions, to the Garden of Eden where man would be again at peace with fair creation—this was the secret striving that lay back of the conquest of Alexander, the travels of Marco Polo and the blessed voyages of Columbus. The American earth was sacred not in itself but because it formed the bridge to the East and lay on the road to Paradise.
"Lo, soul," said the heartbroken old man, "seest thou not God's purpose from the first?"