of the grand creative impulse. In its own measure the weed had a soul, however mean and wayward, and its attempt to survive, its attempt to get drinks and cocaine on money borrowed from a prostitute was, if not so noble as the struggle of a Goethe to put verities on the tongue of his Faust, at least as undeniably a part of the great élan. We poor foolish mortals are unhappy, Grover reflected, because we won't face: the most apparent fact in all the world, which is that the woes or the joys of one individual are as nothing in the solar scheme. If we could for once stand far enough aloof from ourselves to catch a glimpse of the colossal wear and tear of creation, we would understand the grandeur of contributing even an infinitesimal quota; we would be filled with a zest for life that would override grief, decay, and death itself. He felt, as he walked through the blatant, garish boulevards, as though he were part of the rich soil of humanity,—a soil which drank in the rain, the sunshine, the nitres in the air, a putrid soil in which seeds were germinating, and the seeds would sprout and grow into a crop; the crop would perhaps feed the starving, perhaps lie neglected in the field to rot and provide nourishment for future crops. Whether the crop should prove utilizable or not was of little consequence; what was of consequence was the deep awareness of fertility, the knowledge that one was being used, however ruthlessly, in however small degree, by the colossal forces of creation.
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