A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



some good music and try on a dress-coat once 

 more ; it even occurred to me that in order to 

 preserve my interest in sublunary affairs I needed 

 an occasional soft-shell crab or a piece of pompano. 

 I kicked the yellow dog that day, to Charlie s 

 amazement, and I must have spoken gruffly to 

 Charlie, for I found him and the dog afterward 

 sitting on a fallen tree-trunk, silently sympathizing 

 with each other. I apologized to both of them, 

 but it was a mere duty. 



I watched the sun go down that evening, and 

 I never before saw anything so consummately 

 melancholy. It was luridly and mockingly fan 

 tastic, and was barred by the grim trunks of the 

 trees, black and monolithic, that seemed to rise 

 from a graveyard. A September sunset is proba 

 bly the loneliest of all earthly spectacles. It is 

 like Chopin s music, hiding tears with colour. 

 Tears for what ? God knows. If you are alone 

 and in the mood, it will paint fathomless depths 

 of pathos that you cannot sound, and rim its 

 bulks of dun despair with ironical regrets. 



Charlie and I fled from the twilight into the 

 house and shut the door, and lit our kerosene 

 lamp. Then we stumbled round in a haphazard 

 way to get our supper. I made a strong pot of 

 coffee, for which I had a sudden hankering, 

 instead of tea, and desperately drank three or 

 four cups of it, black, and when Charlie had 

 mumbled his prayer and crawled into bed, I lit 

 a cigar and paced up and down in the moonlight. 

 It was a very ghostly affair, I thought. The 



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