OUTDOORS 



swift-winged showers emphasize this feeling, 

 as a man stands midway of herdless solitudes 

 while the storm descends, and. sees 



" the empty pastures, blind with rain.' 



The sky is as changeable as the wind in 

 these early days. Sometimes it is very blue, 

 with now and then light flakes of snowy 

 clouds scattered across; and then it will be a 

 leaden gray, with wimpled skeins of cloud- 

 film blown across. And sometimes the vast 

 void is a majestic dome, pictured with a mov- 

 ing panorama of cloud, wind, and sunlight, 

 and troops of wandering wild-fowl. The 

 shade of a cloud cast on the sun may etch a 

 silhouette of Titanic boldness for a fleeting 

 moment; and then the sunlight reappears, to 

 fall in the space below, a golden cataract 

 that floods the shining marshes. The heights 

 where the blue deepens overhead seem arched 

 against the rafters of heaven. Below the 

 depths are boundless. The whistling call of 

 a flock of plover comes warningly, their white 

 breasts flash as they wheel solidly past, they 

 fade quickly over a slope, and the silence is 

 accentuated. 



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