THE THRESHOLD OF THE GODS.  o1% 
effort. We were nearly opposite a grand 
opening in those stately trees, out of which 
seemed to issue the silvery line which cut the 
river. I leaned forward, with “suspended 
breath, to catch a glimpse right down it as we 
should pass. The gods were there, I knew 
they were ; I should see some one of them, at 
least, if only a sylvan faun or satyr, or a dryad 
slowly withdrawing into the heart of a tree. 
Deus ecce! Deus. 
That great white bird came out of the shad- 
ows of the woods again, and curving its flight 
down the stream seemed to melt into the mist. 
A sensation of dewy coolness crept over me, 
as if shaken from the rorid sandals of some 
passing naiad. The bankof the river opposite 
to the ridge’s precipice now presented a gay, 
almost fantastic appearance. Tall, aquatic 
grasses, thinly interspersed with certain scar- 
let-spiked riparian weeds, were sown at the 
water’s verge; their long slender stalks and 
semi-translucent leaves, waving to the impulse 
of air and water-ripple, sent forth a sort of 
shimmer like that which Virgil intended to 
describe with the phrase “ Zum silvis scena 
coruscis”’—a waving motion with light flashing 
and flickering through. Right opposite this a 
narrow, vertical rent intersected the ridge, and 
through it an almost level finger of the sun 
reached to caress the grass. Just as we passed 
I noted, by an instantaneous glance, a strange 
and beautiful thing—a troop of dragon-flies, 
purple-bodied and silver-winged, filing rapidly, 
in open order of ones and twos, across the 
sunlight into the dewy recesses of the river’s 
fringe. Each gaudy insect, as it flew, wavered 
in the air so dreamily and eccentrically that 
