CHAPTER XIV 



THE BAPTISM OF DIRT 



SEPTEMBER sets her quiet banquets occa 

 sionally, and, like Hamlet, we eat the air, 

 promise-crammed. There are breakfasts of 

 sunrise and long hours of aerial lunch, when the 

 atmosphere is golden with invisible fruit, and all 

 one can do is to feed the senses. Then it is that, 

 the old, worn earth is very beautiful, as she sits 

 with her hands crossed in her bounteous lap. 

 With her labour all finished, one might say that 

 she crooned softly on a royal death-bed. It is at 

 this rare interval of fruition and expectancy that 

 the poor devils lock their studio doors and steal 

 away to the woods and mountains to lay in inspi 

 ration after society has fled. September to them 

 is a rustic sweetheart, who welcomes them with 

 fruity breath and large calm eyes of blue. Then 

 it is that they renew their youth, looking for the 

 sleeping princess, and become princes themselves 

 in fairy solitudes. 



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