The writer would add all of his twelve numerals together, and then the
sum would express the whole truth about the Taj, and the truth only--63.
But the reader--always helped by his imagination--would put the figures
in a row one after the other, and get this sum, which would tell him a
noble big lie:
559575255555.
You must put in the commas yourself; I have to go on with my work.
The reader will always be sure to put the figures together in that wrong
way, and then as surely before him will stand, sparkling in the sun, a
gem-crusted Taj tall as the Matterhorn.
I had to visit Niagara fifteen times before I succeeded in getting my
imaginary Falls gauged to the actuality and could begin to sanely and
wholesomely wonder at them for what they were, not what I had expected
them to be. When I first approached them it was with my face lifted
toward the sky, for I thought I was going to see an Atlantic ocean
pouring down thence over cloud-vexed Himalayan heights, a sea-green wall
of water sixty miles front and six miles high, and so, when the toy
reality came suddenly into view--that beruiled little wet apron hanging
out to dry--the shock was too much for me, and I fell with a dull thud.
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