THROUGH LIBRARY WINDOWS 207 



and forests. I climbed to the observatory and 

 turned my face in eagerest expectation to the 

 east and waited and watched, as determined as 

 the old sphinx. I took in all of earth and sky 

 that I could. Soon I detected the faintest dawn 

 trembling on the bosom of auroral life. How 

 marvellously beautiful its tracery and exquisite 

 beyond all word painting its roseate coloring. 

 In those foregleams I felt the coming day, I 

 saw the world astir in its industrial activities, I 

 heard the whirr of its machinery, but it grated 

 harshly and I banished it all and drank in freely 

 through every sense the unexcelled splendor of 

 this daybreak. How sweet the atmosphere,- like 

 wine in the blood, tingling to exhilaration. The 

 quiet was absolute, not a stir of leaf nor the 

 chirp of bird, nor the bark of dog, nor the 

 smoke of chimney — nothing, nobody — pure and 

 perfect repose ; only light diffusing and shadows 

 fleeing away, for the sun was making haste 

 to greet our part of the world and the world 

 was all expectancy, trembling with conscious 

 delight in its hasting morning bath. 



I saw far away the white mists hovering over 

 lakelets like a light veil of gauze. I saw a mil- 

 lion dewdrops pendant on grass and leaf and 

 flower, in each a bright reflection of the morn- 

 ing light. The transparent atmosphere brought 



