* * * * *




#INTRODUCTORY#

#Bootstrap-lifting#

Bootstrap-lifting? says the reader.

It is a vision I have seen: upon a vast plain, men and women are
gathered in dense throngs, crouched in uncomfortable and distressing
positions, their fingers hooked in the straps of their boots. They are
engaged in lifting themselves; tugging and straining until they grow
red in the face, exhausted. The perspiration streams from their
foreheads, they show every symptom of distress; the eyes of all are
fixed, not upon each other, nor upon their boot-straps, but upon the
sky above. There is a look of rapture upon their faces, and now and
then, amid grunts and groans, they cry out with excitement and
triumph.

I approach one and say to him, "Friend, what is this you are doing?"

He answers, without pausing to glance at me, "I am performing
spiritual exercises. See how I rise?"

"But," I say, "you are not rising at all!"