FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106  
107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   >>   >|  
h a certain stealthiness, peering on this side and that down moony vistas and into shadow-bowers, as if half expecting, if he might step lightly enough, to catch a glimpse of some sort of dream-people basking there. Nor could Miss Rood herself resist the impression the moony landscape gave of teeming with subtle forms of life, escaping the grosser senses of human beings, but perceptible by their finer parts. Each cosey nook of light and shadow was yet warm from some presence that had just left it. The landscape fairly stirred with ethereal forms of being beneath the fertilizing moon-rays, as the earth-mould wakes into physical life under the sun's heat. The yellow moonlight looked warm as spirits might count warmth. The air was electric with the thrill of circumambient existence. There was the sense of pressure, of a throng. It would have been impossible to feel lonely. The pulsating sounds of the insect world seemed the rhythm to which the voluptuous beauty of the night had spontaneously set itself. The common air of day had been transmuted into the atmosphere of revery and Dreamland. In that magic medium the distinction between imagination and reality fast dissolved. Even Miss Rood was conscious of a delightful excitement, a vague expectancy. Mr. Morgan, she saw, was moved quite beyond even his exaggerated habit of imaginative excitement. His wet, shining, wide-opened eyes and ecstatic expression indicated complete abandonment to the illusions of the scene. They had seated themselves, as the concentration of the brain upon imaginative activity made the nerves of motion sluggish, upon a rude bench formed by wedging a plank between two elms that stood close together. They were within the shadow of the trees, but close up to their feet rippled a lake of moonlight. The landscape shimmering before them had been the theatre of their fifty years of life. Their history was written in its trees and lawns and paths. The very air of the place had acquired for them a dense, warm, sentient feeling, to which that of all other places was thin and raw. It had become tinctured by their own spiritual emanations, by the thoughts, looks, words and moods of which it had so long received the impression. It had become such vitalized air, surcharged with sense and thought, as might be taken to make souls for men out of. Over yonder, upon the playground, yet lingered the faint violet fragrance of their childhood. Beneath that elm a kiss
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   82   83   84   85   86   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106  
107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

landscape

 

shadow

 

impression

 
excitement
 
imaginative
 

moonlight

 
sluggish
 

wedging

 

formed

 

Morgan


activity
 

expression

 

ecstatic

 

complete

 

abandonment

 
opened
 

shining

 

illusions

 

nerves

 
motion

concentration

 
exaggerated
 

seated

 

surcharged

 

vitalized

 

thought

 

received

 
childhood
 

fragrance

 

Beneath


violet

 

yonder

 

playground

 

lingered

 

thoughts

 

emanations

 

written

 

history

 

shimmering

 

theatre


tinctured

 

spiritual

 

places

 

acquired

 

sentient

 

feeling

 
rippled
 

perceptible

 

beings

 

subtle