NOTE

When I seek out the sources of my thoughts, I find they had their beginnings in fragile Chance; they were born of little moments that shine for me curiously in the past. Slight the impulse that made me take this turning at the crossroads, trivial and fortuitous the meeting, and light as gossamer the thread that first knit me to my friend. These are full of wonder; more mysterious are the moments that must have brushed my evanescently with their wings and passed me by; when Fate beckoned and I did not see it, when a new Life trembled for a second on the threshold; but the word was not spoken, the hand was not held out, and the Might-have been shivered and vanished, dim as a dream, into the waste realms of non-existence.

So I never lose a sense of the whimsical and perilous charm of daily life, with its meetings and words and accidents. Why, today, perhaps, or next week, I may hear a voice and, packing up my Gladstone bag, follow it to the ends of the world.

Logan Pearsall Smith (a lovely, gusty, name; like a ship sailing before the wind):

Today’s lesson is to have a Gladstone bag

Always near at hand. When the voice calls

Come now to the ends of the world and beyond!

Can you answer: Just wait! With expedited shipping

And for only two hundred dollars

Amazon can deliver my bag tomorrow?