The earth does not argue,
Is not pathetic, has no arrangements,
Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise.
Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures,
Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out.

The Confidence-Man, by Herman Melville

At sunrise on a first of April, there appeared, suddenly as Manco Capac at the lake Titicaca, a man in cream-colors, at the water-side in the city of St. Louis. His cheek was fair, his chin downy, his hair flaxen, his hat a white fur one, with a long fleecy nap. He had neither trunk, valise, carpet-bag, nor parcel. No porter followed him. He was unaccompanied by friends. From the shurgged shoulders, titters, whispers, wonderings of the crowd, it was plain that he was, in the extremest sense of the word, a stranger.
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