| Operation Annotation 12000 |
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Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any
lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the
Sound. 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. Its 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
for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity
for wonder.
And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the public rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...And one fine morning----- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
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