Chapter XVIII 



EVENTIDE 



HEN the shadows 

 lengthen and the 

 landscape becomes 

 indistinct, the com- 

 mon life of men 

 seems to touch the 

 *- life of Nature most 

 closely and sympathetically. The work of 

 the day is accomplished ; the sense of things 

 to be done loses its painful tension; the 

 mind, freed from the cares which engrossed 

 it, opens unconsciously to the sights and 

 sounds of the quiet hour. The fields are 

 given over to silence and the gathering 

 darkness ; the roads cease to be thorough- 

 fares of toil ; and over all things the peace 

 of night settles like an unspoken benedic- 

 tion. To the most preoccupied there comes 

 a consciousness that the world has changed, 

 and that, while the old framework remains 

 intact, a strange and transforming beauty 



