It is clear that the history of mankind as far as our knowledge
goes, is a history of the transition from nomadic forms to more
sedentary ones. Does it not follow that the most sedentary form of
life (ours) is at the same time, the most perfect one? There was a
time when people were rushing from one end of the earth to another,
but this was the prehistoric time when such things as nations, wars,
commerce, different discoveries of different Americas still existed.
Who has need of these things now?
I admit humanity acquired this habit of a sedentary form of life not
without difficulty and not at once. When the Two Hundred Years' War
had destroyed all the roads which later were overgrown with grass,
it was probably very difficult at first. It seemed uncomfortable to
live in cities which were cut off from each other by green debris.
But what of it? Man soon after he lost his tail probably did not
learn at once how to chase away flies without its help. I am almost
sure that at first he was even lonesome without his tail, but now,
can you imagine yourself with a tail? Or can you imagine yourself
walking in the street naked, without clothes? (It is possible you go
without clothes still.) Here we have the same case. I cannot imagine
a city which is not clad with a Green Wall; I cannot imagine a life
which is not clad with the figures of our Tables.
Tables.... Now even, purple figures look at me austerely yet kindly
from the golden background of the wall. Involuntarily I am reminded
of the thing which was called by the ancients, "Sainted Image," and
I feel a desire to compose verses, or prayers which are the same.
Oh, why am not I a poet, so as to be able properly to glorify the
Tables, the heart and pulse of the United State!
All of us and perhaps all of you read in childhood while in school,
that greatest of all monuments of ancient literature, the Official
Railroad Guide. But if you compare this with the Tables, you
will see side by side graphite and diamonds. Both are the same,
carbon. But how eternal, transparent, how shining the diamond!
Who does not lose his breath when he runs through the pages of
the Guide? The Tables transformed each one of us, actually, into
a six-wheeled steel hero of a great poem. Every morning with
six-wheeled precision, at the same hour, at the same minute, we wake
up, millions of us at once. At the very same hour millions like
one we begin our work, and millions like one, we finish it. United
into a single body with a million hands, at the very same second,
designated by the Tables, we carry the spoons to our mouths; at the
same second we all go out to walk, go to the auditorium, to the
halls for the Taylor exercises and then to bed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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