What I want now is a sort
of safety-ring to string 'em on and keep 'em safe; for I haven't a
good memory, and I get mighty rattled sometimes. Thoughts like
these are like the secret of a combination lock; they let you into
the place where the gold and securities and title-deeds of life are.
Trouble is, I haven't got a safety-ring, and I'm certain to lose
them. I haven't got what you'd call an intellectual memory. Things
come in flashes to me out of experiences, and pull me up short, and
I say, "Yes, that's it--that's it; I understand." I see why it's
so, and what it means, and where it leads, and how far it spreads.
It's five thousand years old. Adam thought it after Cain killed
Abel, or Abel thought it just before he died, or Eve learned it from
Lilith, or it struck Abraham when he went to sacrifice Isaac.
Sometimes things hit me deep like that here in the desert. Then I
feel I can see just over on the horizon the tents of Moab in the
wilderness; that yesterday and to-day are the same; that I've
crossed the prairies of the everlasting years, and am playing about
with Ishmael in the wild hills, or fighting with Ahab.
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