en I came out on the marsh. This double flow
explained it, of course. There were denser and less dense waves in
it: like veils hung up one behind the other. So long as I went in a
direction opposite to its flow, I had to look through sheet after sheet
of the denser waves. Later I could every now and then look along a plane
of lesser density...

It was Dan who found the turn off the grade into the bushy glades. I
could see distinctly how he pushed Peter over. Here, where again the
road was winding, and where the light, therefore, once more frequently
struck the twigs and boughs, as they floated into my cone of luminosity,
to disappear again behind, a new impression thrust itself upon me. I
call it an impression, not an observation. It is very hard to say, what
was reality, what fancy on a night like that. In spite of its air of
unreality, of improbability even, it has stayed with me as one of my
strongest visions. I nearly hesitate to put it in writing.

These boughs and twigs were like fingers held into a stream that carried
loose algae, arresting them in their gliding motion. Or again, those
wisps of mist were like gossamers as they floated along, and they would
bend and fold over on the boughs before they tore; and where they broke,
they seemed like comets to trail a thinner tail of themselves behind.
There was tenacity in them, a certain consistency which made them appear
as if woven of different things from air and mere moisture. I have
often doubted my memory here, and yet I have my very definite notes, and
besides there is the picture in my mind. In spite of my own uncertainty
I can assure you, that this is only one quarter a poem woven of
impressions; the other three quarters are reality. But, while I am
trying to set down facts, I am also trying to render moods and images
begot by them...

We went on for an hour, and it lengthened out into two. No twigs and
boughs any longer, at last. But where I was, I knew not. Much as I
listened, I could not make out any difference in the tramp of the horses
now I looked down over the back of my buggy seat, and I seemed to see
the yellow or brownish clay of a grade. I went on rather thoughtlessly.
Then, about eleven o'clock, I noticed that the road was rough. I had
long since, as I said, given myself over to the horses. But now I grew
nervous. No doubt, unless we had entirely strayed from our road, we were
by this time riding the last dam; for no other trail over which we