9/23/34

My sense of distance – especially where any great distance is concerned – is very tricky and my conception of the location of foreign countries is apt to merge into the mysterious. Mexico and Canada are properly situated in my mental picture of the world. When Mexico is mentioned in conversation, somewhere in my consciousness is registered a security in the fact that Mexico is “so many” hundred miles to my left or over yon hill-top, to be more concise. If a conversational gesture is needed, no second-thought is necessary to jerk a thumb in the direction of Mexico, Canada or any one of the United States. But out of this range, places and peoples merge into a dim geographical twilight, and their mention will call up only remembered names, racial peculiarities, famous buildings, or characteristic pictures of the country, and often an image of the shape of the country’s boundaries gained from study in a geography or territorial map of some kind. This discourse was impelled by the broadcast just now from the summit of Jung Frau Mountain, highest point in Switzerland. Something to think about this – Sounds of a train, of human voices high above Berne, where the temperature was -4° C. at 7 o’clock in the evening.