Once You Are My Friend, I Am

Water, Thou Hast No Taste, No Color, No Odor; Canst Not Be Defined, Art Relished While Ever Mysterious. Not Necessary To Life, But Rather Life Itself, Thou Fillest Us With A Gratification That Exceeds The Delight Of The Senses.

Horror Causes Men To Clench Their Fists, And In Horror Men Join Together.

Sitting In The Flickering Light Of The Candles On This Kerchief Of Sand, On This Village Square, We Waited In The Night. We Were Waiting For The Rescuing Dawn - Or For The Moors. Something, I Know Not What, Lent This Night A Savor Of Christmas. We Told Stories, We Joked, We Sang Songs. In The Air There Was That Slight Fever That Reigns Over A Gaily Prepared Feast. And Yet We Were Infinitely Poor. Wind, Sand, And Stars. The Austerity Of Trappists. But On This Badly Lighted Cloth, A Handful Of Men Who Possessed Nothing In The World But Their Memories Were Sharing Invisible Riches.

There Is A Cheap Literature That Speaks To Us Of The Need Of Escape. It Is True That When We Travel We Are In Search Of Distance. But Distance Is Not To Be Found. It Melts Away. And Escape Has Never Led Anywhere. The Moment A Man Finds That He Must Play The Races, Go The Arctic, Or Make War In Order To Feel Himself Alive, That Man Has Begin To Spin The Strands That Bind Him To Other Men And To The World. But What Wretched Strands! A Civilization That Is Really Strong Fills Man To The Brim, Though He Never Stir. What Are We Worth When Motionless, Is The Question.

Perfection Is Attained, Not When No More Can Be Added, But When No More Can Be Removed.