"nd I know that just as the voice of Jesus was not heard, and is not heard, save here and there; just as the voice of Tolstoy is not heard, save here and there; and others great and small are lost in the great echoless desert of indifferentism, having produced little perceptible effect, so my voice also will be lost, and barely a slight ripple of thought be propagated over that dry and fruitless expanse; even that the next wind of trial will straighten and leave as unimprinted sand."

— de Cleyre, Voltairine (1866-1912)


Place of Publication
New York
Publisher
Mother Earth Publishing
Date
1914
Metaphor
"nd I know that just as the voice of Jesus was not heard, and is not heard, save here and there; just as the voice of Tolstoy is not heard, save here and there; and others great and small are lost in the great echoless desert of indifferentism, having produced little perceptible effect, so my voice also will be lost, and barely a slight ripple of thought be propagated over that dry and fruitless expanse; even that the next wind of trial will straighten and leave as unimprinted sand."
Metaphor in Context
And I know that just as the voice of Jesus was not heard, and is not heard, save here and there; just as the voice of Tolstoy is not heard, save here and there; and others great and small are lost in the great echoless desert of indifferentism, having produced little perceptible effect, so my voice also will be lost, and barely a slight ripple of thought be propagated over that dry and fruitless expanse; even that the next wind of trial will straighten and leave as unimprinted sand.
(p. 176)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Voltairine de Cleyre, "Crime and Punishment," Selected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre, ed. Alexander Berkman (New York: Mother Earth Publishing, 1914): 173-204.
Date of Entry
05/21/2018

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.