Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/175

Rh since I have been in this country. These are a standing subject in the newspapers at this time, and are treated partly in jest and partly in earnest. But I shall certainly find Iduna with the apple of the Hesperides, in that Eden of the setting sun. Do not the Alleghany Mountains and Niagara stand as giant watchers at its entrance, to open the portals of that new garden of Paradise, the latest home of the human race? Those glorious cherubim forbid not the entrance, they invite it, because they are great and beautiful.

The people of Europe pour in through the cities of the eastern coast. Those are the portals of the outer court; but the West is the garden where the rivers carry along with them gold, and where stands the tree of life and of death. There the tongue of the serpent and the voice of God are again heard by a new humanity.

That great, enigmatical land of the West, with its giant rivers and giant falls and giant lakes; with its valley of the Mississippi and its Rocky Mountains, and its land of gold and the Pacific Ocean; with its buffaloes and its golden humming-birds; the land which nourishes States as the children of men, and where cities grow great in a human life; where the watchword of existence—is growth, progress! This enigmatic, promised land, this land of the future I shall now behold!

I long for it as for the oracle which shall give a response to many of my spirit's questions. My little basket is filled with bananas and peaches, my travelling-fairy is with me, and the last letter of my beloved. God bless my precious sister, her sea-bathing and her friends, and for her sake also, her sister and her friend,

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P.S. How fervently with my whole heart do I thank my beloved mamma for that permission, so kindly given, for me to remain over the winter in America. Those