A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



we could see the gnarled and fantastic apple trees, 

 where an old orchard sprawled out into the level 

 land. We heard the softened voices of men and 

 women, who were gathering apples and making 

 cider, and the intermittent creak of the cider-mill 

 was not unlike a late cricket. 



That such a vista should lay hold of the sensi 

 bilities of two unlike men of the world, not at all 

 given to the &quot;album business,&quot; as the Doctor 

 called it, was, I thought, notable, and as I sat 

 down to drink it all in, I remarked that it was like 

 one of those old strains of Bellini s that have a 

 cloying sweetness. But the Doctor thought not. 

 It was an harmonic complex, making interminable 

 music without bars. It reminded him of the swan 

 music in Lohengrin. Whether it was the season 

 or the mood we brought to it, I do not know, but 

 we sat silent a moment to let it play its own tune 

 upon us. Out in the middle of the meadow a 

 winding stream had spread itself into a little la 

 goon, and round about were pools which looked 

 like blue eyes, and over them the huckleberry 

 bushes leaned, barring and etching the water with 

 a delicate tracery. On either side the grasses 

 spread out in orange, bronze, and tawny bands 

 that melted into each other and made of the 

 meadow a spectrum of the season. 



These visual rhythms go very deep into a man s 

 subconsciousness, and the Doctor warned me not 

 to disturb them with any aestheticism. &quot; They 

 cannot be unravelled,&quot; he said, &quot; and they resent 

 explication. In that sense they are a higher kind 



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