THE THRESHOLD OF THE GODS. 89 



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 hover a 

 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, 



