To fly! The very thought sets the nerves atingle. It is joy to be afloat, “with a wet sheet and a flowing sea and a wind that follows fast.” It is a joy to be on the back of a swiftly running horse, with the wind rushing away from your face as you ride, bearing every care from your brain ❧ But to traverse the air—to fly! This joy we long for: we have an indisputable, an inalienable right to long for it. To what heights may we rise? This, after all, is the question that concerns us. Sordid, creeping wights that we are, constantly referring our heavenward aspiration to the desire of the mortal, we still “To man propose this test— Thy body, at its best, How far can that project its soul on its lone way?” Our very protests, our kicking against the pricks that would incite us to higher effort are but our blind fear lest, after all, they should not mean flight. We are afraid of our moments of faith; ashamed of our aspiring impulse, the upward impulse that throbbed through all life since the world was born. We send forward our souls if haply they should find God, while we remain behind to weigh and test their evidence when they return to us—if they ever do, hugging the surface the while, lest a sustaining breath of spiritual force lift us clean above the safe shelter in which we may dive altogether should our returning souls bring back news of the meanings of life, scaring us to cover, after all, by the thought that we ourselves, are heaven and hell ❧ [Illustration] Usually we are content to grovel. We traverse our little round and declare it to be destiny. We prate of the limitations of our humanity, forgetful of that humanity’s limitless capacity to receive. With insincere self-abasement we declare ourselves to be worms of the dust, and the spirits of light who look upon us may readily believe our assertions ☙ But there are moments when the scales fall from our eyes. We get fleeting glimpses, then, of the meaning and the end of our human nature. We know that it is in the skies. We know that we have ourselves fashioned the chain that binds us to earth. We know that we were made for flight, and we know that we know all this. Still afar in the sky the hawk soars, with downward gaze seeking his desire. Still, tho’ my feet are upon the earth, my spirit fares upward in its flight toward its desire, above and beyond its strong wings’ farthest flight. [Illustration: ❧] [Illustration]