TCD MS 10515 folio 81 recto
[May 10th 1916]
by aught but his own desires and the yearnings of his own soul.
From the humblest as well as from the loftiest elevations of the earth we are face to face with the unfathomable; the unknowable infinitude of things. How easy it is for the inhabitants of such lands to believe that they perceive infinity. In this unbroken wilderness the infinite dwells in every scene. An infinite sky above, and infinite desert around, rivers that seem of infinite length wind through infinite sands; and infinite ocean laps the nearest shores; the locusts, like the whirling grains of dust, seem infinite in their countless myriads. When we leave the narrow barriers of civilization and stand confronted into with the vastest spectacles of nature we are even lost in the most fundamental conception of things;