fee Take SHOLD OF THE GODS. 85 
dell, sweeter and softer the gloom grew apace. 
I marked well the giant trees just beyond the 
sheeny line, and saw through the spaces be- 
tween them shadowy mysteries flitting to and 
fro—mysteries that a dash of sunlight would 
have dissipated, that a puff of wind would have 
lifted up and scattered like smoke. Faster 
and faster we sped, wilder and wilder grew 
the flight of the halcyon. He could not take 
time now to light at all, but only to hovera 
moment at eligible perching places, and then 
hurry on before us. 
What a thrill is dashed through a moment 
of expectancy, a point of supreme suspense, 
when by some time of preparation the source 
of sensation is ready for a consummation-—a 
catastrophe! At such a time one’s soul is 
isolated so perfectly that it feels not the re- 
motest influence from any other of all the uni- 
verse. The moment preceding the old pa- 
triarch’s first glimpse of the Promised Land 
—that point of time between uncertainty and 
certainty, between pursuit and capture, where- 
into is crowded all the hopes of a lifetime, as 
when the brave old sailor from Genoa first 
heard the man up in the rigging utter the 
shout of discovery—the moment of awful hope, 
like that when Napoleon watched the charge 
of the Old Guard at Waterloo, is not to be 
described. There is but one such crisis for 
any man. It is the yes or the no of destiny. 
It comes, he lives a life-time in its span; it 
goes, and he never can pass that point again. 
But there are crises, scarcely less absorb- 
ing, to which, after they are passed, one can 
turn and almost live them over. These are 
the crises into which no element of selfishness, 
