It is only in
the fastnesses of nature, forests, mountains, and the back of man's
beyond, that a creature endowed with five senses can grow up into
the perfection of this crass and earthy vanity. In towns or the
busier country sides, he is roughly reminded of other men's
existence; and if he learns no more, he learns at least to fear
contempt. But Irvine had come scatheless through life, conscious
only of himself, of his great strength and intelligence; and in the
silence of the universe, to which he did not listen, dwelling with
delight on the sound of his own thoughts.
THE SEA FOGS
A change in the colour of the light usually called me in the
morning. By a certain hour, the long, vertical chinks in our
western gable, where the boards had shrunk and separated, flashed
suddenly into my eyes as stripes of dazzling blue, at once so dark
and splendid that I used to marvel how the qualities could be
combined. At an earlier hour, the heavens in that quarter were
still quietly coloured, but the shoulder of the mountain which
shuts in the canyon already glowed with sunlight in a wonderful
compound of gold and rose and green; and this too would kindle,
although more mildly and with rainbow tints, the fissures of our
crazy gable. If I were sleeping heavily, it was the bold blue that
struck me awake; if more lightly, then I would come to myself in
that earlier and fairier fight.
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