The circle almost circled."

Mr. Porter Garnett's excellent explanation you may be glad to read:

"In these transcendent lines we have the poet speaking as the
personification and representative of the Aryan race, the race, which,
having its origin in the plains of Kashmir, has by virtue of the spirit
of conquest, the desire to be seeking what is yet unfound, finally
reached the western edge of the American Continent, whence it 'faces
west from California's shores' and looks toward the House of Maternity,
the Land of Migrations from which it originally sprang."

"It seems hardly possible to conceive of an inscription that embodies
such a tremendous thought, and is, at the same time, so appropriate to
the purpose for which it is suggested. It comes, moreover, from the poet
who above all others represents the spirit of the American people and
the ideals of democracy."

You now feel the import of the Occidentals who, with that Aryan spirit,
have with mighty power, such as Hercules alone possessed (as Perham
Nahl's poster tells you) severed two continents and introduced the
Panama Canal.

-

Next read the far-seeing words of Goethe in his letters to Eckermann (on
the west side of The Arch of the Setting Sun):

"It is absolutely indispensable for the United States to effect a
passage from the Mexican Gulf to the Pacific Ocean, and I am certain