and stretched forth great
feet and hands of roots, palms pressing against the mud, curved backs
and thews of shoulders braced against one another and the drag of the
tides. Little by little the old prostrate trunks were entirely
obliterated by this fantastic network. There were no fine fibers or
rootlets here; only great beams and buttresses, bridges and up-ended
spirals, grown together or spreading wide apart. Root merged with
trunk, and great boles became roots and then boles again in this
unreasonable land. For here, in place of damp, black mold and soil,
water alternated with dark-shadowed air; and so I was able for a time
to live the life of a root, resting quietly among them, watching and
feeling them, and moving very slowly, with no thought of time, as
roots must.

I liked to wait until the last ripple had lapped against the sand
beneath, and then slip quietly in from the margin of the jungle and
perch--like a great tree-frog--on some convenient shelf. Seumas and
Brigid would have enjoyed it, in spite of the fact that the
Leprechauns seemed to have just gone. I found myself usually in a
little room, walled with high-arched, thin sheets of living roots,
some of which would form solid planks three feet wide and twelve long,
and only an inch or two in thickness. These were always on edge, and
might be smooth and sheer, or suddenly sprout five stubby, mittened
fingers, or pairs of curved and galloping legs--and this thought gave
substance to the simile which had occurred again and again: these
trees reminded me of centaurs with proud, upright man torsos, and
great curved backs. In one, a root dropped down and rested on the
back, as a centaur who turns might rest his hand on his withers.

When I chanced upon an easy perch, and a stray idea came to mind, I
squatted or sat or sprawled, and wrote, and strange things often
happened to me. Once, while writing rapidly on a small sheet of paper,
I found my lines growing closer and closer together until my fingers
cramped, and the consciousness of the change overlaid the thoughts
that were driving hand and pen. I then realized that, without
thinking, I had been following a succession of faint lines,
cross-ruled on my white paper, and looking up, I saw that a
leaf-filtered opening had reflected strands of a spider-web just above
my head, and I had been adapting my lines to the narrow spaces, my
chirography controlled by cobweb shadows.

The first unreality of the roots was