“Who knows,” they say, “but that we are the descendants of kings?  There is that in us that is foreign to this land, something not indigenous to this soil, of which this island is not worthy.  It cometh from afar and had elsewhere its begetting.  In us are latent unnamed powers, senses that in this island cannot be used.  Our eyes are unnecessarily bright, our hearts superfluously strong.  This Earth cannot satisfy us, it cannot afford scope enough, we cannot try ourselves upon it.  This is the hope that we keep holy, that out of the heavens or across the sea our kindred, our masters, or our gods will claim us and take us to a new land where our hearts’ meaning may completely show itself outwardly to the sky; where our latent senses will find the things that can be sensed, and our faculties that which can be made, where our hearts and wills may be satisfied, and we may find wings with which to soar over all seas.”

Behold these dedicates, with their torch of remembrance kindled in the night of ignorance, these living eternally in the presence of the mystery!  They pine upon shores, looking over the unbridgeable abyss, yearning their souls towards that ultimate horizon, with limbs vainly strong, eyes vainly keen, hearts ready for an adventure they may not undertake.  At their feet wails the sea with never-ending sadness.  In their minds are haunting tunes, the echoes of the wailing of the waves.  They cry, and no one hears; they sing, and no one responds; they are like those who have loved once and lost, and who may never be comforted.

These nurse in their hearts the unconquerable hope.

* * * * *

So is it with us upon the world, we irreconcilable ones; we stand upon many shores and strain our eyes to see into the unknown.  We are upon a deserted island and have no boats to take us from star to star, not only upon a deserted island but upon a deserted universe, for even the stars are familiar; they are worlds not unlike our own.  The whole universe is our world and it is all explained by the scientists, or is explicable.  But beyond the universe, no scientist, not any of us, knows anything.  On all shores of the universe washes the ocean of ignorance, the ocean of the inexplicable.  We stand upon the confines of an explored world and gaze at many blank horizons.  We yearn towards our natural home, the kingdom in which our spirits were begotten.  We have rifled the world, and tumbled it upside-down, and run our fingers through all its treasures, yet have not come upon the charter of our birth.  We explored Beauty till we came to the shore of a great sea; we explored music, and came upon the outward shore of harmony and earthly truth, and found its limits.

Some spoke of our limitations, but it is our glory that our hearts know no limitations except those which are the defects of the world.  The world is full of limitations, but our hearts scorn them, being full of boundless power.