At Close Range

On my writing-table lies a magnifying-glass the size of an old watch crystal, which helps me to understand the mechanism of many interesting things. With it I decipher at close range such finger-work as the cutting of intaglios, the brush-marks on miniatures, or perhaps the intricate fusings of metals in the sword-guard of a Samurai. At the same close range I try to search the secret places of the many minds and hearts which in my nomadic life cross my path. In these magnifyings and probings the unexpected is ofttimes revealed: tenderness hiding behind suspected cruelty; refinement under assumed coarseness; the joy of giving forcing its way through thick crusts of pretended avarice. The results confirm my theory, that at the bottom of every heart-crucible choked with life's cinders there can almost always be found a drop of gold.