That blue dimness, receding from bole to bole, is the skirt of Night's
garment, trailing off toward some other star. As easily as it slips from
tree to tree, it glides from earth to Orion.

Light, which later will riot and revel and strike pitilessly down, still
is tender and tentative. It sweeps in rosy scythe-strokes, parallel to
earth. It gilds, where later it will burn.

Gissing lay, without stirring. The springs of the old couch were creaky,
and the slightest sound might arouse the children within. Now, until
they woke, was his peace. Purposely he had had the sleeping porch built
on the eastern side of the house. Making the sun his alarm clock, he
prolonged the slug-a-bed luxury. He had procured the darkest and
most opaque of all shades for the nursery windows, to cage as long as
possible in that room Night the silencer. At this time of the year, the
song of the mosquito was his dreaded nightingale. In spite of fine-mesh
screens, always one or two would get in. Mrs. Spaniel, he feared, left
the kitchen door ajar during the day, and these Borgias of the insect
world, patiently invasive, seized their chance. It was a rare night when
a sudden scream did not come from the nursery every hour or so. "Daddy,
a keeto, a keeto!" was the anguish from one of the trio. The other two
were up instantly, erect and yelping in their cribs, small black paws on
the rail, pink stomachs candidly exposed to the winged stilleto. Lights
on, and the room must be explored for the lurking foe. Scratching
themselves vigorously, the fun of the chase assuaged the smart of those
red welts. Gissing, wise by now, knew that after a forager the mosquito
always retires to the ceiling, so he kept a stepladder in the room.
Mounted on this, he would pursue the enemy with a towel, while the
children screamed with merriment. Then stomachs must be anointed with
more citronella; sheets and blankets reassembled, and quiet gradually
restored. Life, as parents know, can be supported on very little sleep.

But how delicious to lie there, in the morning freshness, to hear the
earth stir with reviving gusto, the merriment of birds, the exuberant
clink of milk-bottles set down by the back-door, the whole complex
machinery of life begin anew! Gissing was amazed now, looking back upon
his previous existence, to see himself so busy, so active. Few
people are really lazy, he thought: what we call laziness is merely
maladjustment. For in any department of life where