In a message dated 12/16/98 1:06:42 PM Central Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< (The 19th century pioneers of the Westward Expansion were used to a rugged
outdoor life in the Great Eastern Forest. They were amazed when they crossed
the Missouri River and came to a clearing in the woods that was so big they
couldn't see the trees on the other side. After an entire day's hike they had
not come to the other side of the clearing. Standing in their new reality of
the Great Plains, many of these grown men became frightened and actually shook
in their boots.) >>

"And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until
gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch
sailors' eyes- a fresh green breast of the New World. It's vanished trees, the
trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to
the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment
man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled
into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to
face ... with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder." -The Great
Gatsby