218 Shadowings 



which is the roof of the forest you catch one 

 dizzy glimpse of the capital : a parasol of emerald 

 feathers outspread in a sky so blinding as to sug- 

 gest the notion of azure electricity. 



Now what is the emotion that such a vision 

 excites, an emotion too powerful to be called 

 wonder, too weird to be called delight? Only 

 when the first shock of it has passed, when the 

 several elements that were combined in it have 

 begun to set in motion widely different groups of 

 ideas, can you comprehend how very complex 

 it must have been. Many impressions belonging 

 to personal experience were doubtless revived in 

 it, but also with them a multitude of sensations 

 more shadowy, accumulations of organic mem- 

 ory ; possibly even vague feelings older than man, 

 for the tropical shapes that aroused the emotion 

 have a history more ancient than our race. 



One of the first elements of the emotion to 

 become clearly distinguishable is the aesthetic; 

 and this, in its general mass, might be termed the 

 sense of terrible beauty. Certainly the spectacle 

 of that unfamiliar life, silent, tremendous, 

 springing to the sun in colossal aspiration, striv- 

 ing for light against Titans, and heedless of man 



