104 UNDER THE TREES. 



and benignant. The conquest of summer is still 

 intact, but here and there one sees slight but un 

 mistakable evidence that the garrison, under cover 

 of night, is beginning its long retreat. In such a 

 moment one feels a sudden sense of loneliness, as 

 if a friend were secretly preparing to desert one to 

 his foes. 



In this pause of the season one finds the subtle 

 beauty and completeness of the summer growing 

 upon him more and more. While the work was 

 going forward, there was such profound interest in 

 the process that one watched the turn and direction 

 of the chisel rather than the surface of the marble 

 slowly answering, line by line, the overmastering 

 thought ; but now that the months of toil are past, 

 and all the implements of labor are cast aside, the 

 finished work absorbs all thought and fills all 

 imaginations. So vast is it, and on such a scale of 

 magnitude, that one hardly saw before the delicacy 

 and exquisite adjustment of parts, the marvelous 

 art that framed the smallest leaf and touched the 

 vagrant wild flower still blooming on the edges of 

 the woodland. It is, after all, when the great festi 

 val days are over and the thronging crowds have 

 gone, that the true worshiper finds the temple 

 beautiful with the highest visions of worship, and 

 in the silence of deserted aisles and shrines sees 

 with new wonder the workmanship of the Deity. 

 For all such this is the most solemn of all the re 

 curring Sabbaths of the year ; the hush at noonday 



