CHAPTER "XIII 

 THE WONDERFUL COUNTRY 



I look up from my writing. What kind of a 

 storm is this ? 



The sun has set, but the falling darkness is swift 

 and almost horrible. The deep brown earth seems 

 to close upon itself, shrinking, afraid. Angry 

 cloud masses sweep portentously across the expanse 

 of sky. Darker it grows, and cold. The landscape 

 is a sentient thing, awaiting annihilation from those 

 browbeating clouds, whose terrorstriking aspect, 

 even in thisland of tremendous effects, I have never 

 seen equalled. Shuddering and inexpressibly lone- 

 ly the solitary watcher shrinks with the shrinking 

 earth. Then by sheer force of habit the eyes turn 

 toward the East; and there, against the yet clear 

 sky, dripped like dewdrops along the horizon — so 

 silvery, so translucent are they — rise those ever- 

 lasting hills, shining with a radiance that is of 

 heaven, not of earth. On this night no ecstasy of 

 color is theirs, but rather do they appear as disem- 

 bodied spirits breathing immortality. And in the 

 heart of the mortal enveloped in the gloom of the 

 Valley springs as unexpectedly the consolation of 

 the ages: There is no Death. 



So does one return somewhat abruptly though 

 not inharmoniously from mental journeyings into 

 prehistoric times. 



