The clouds form shapes but the shapes are not the clouds. The stream makes eddies but the eddies are not the stream. Ice draws trees on the window but the trees are not the ice. Everything you see is a costume the world put on for your benefit. The world underneath has no costume. It has no face. It does not perform.

A philosopher said the spirit of the earth would smile at anyone mourning a lost genius or a wasted age. Because the source that produced them is inexhaustible. The fire does not make the flint smaller. The alchemist said the same thing three hundred years earlier. They were reading the same letters.