"
As he stood there, turned from me, with his hat off, and his neck
painfully flushed under the sharp outcurve of his dark head, a feeling of
pity surged up in me, as if I had taken an unfair advantage.
"Reason--coherence--philosophy," he said suddenly. "You don't
understand. All that is nothing to me--nothing--nothing!"
1911
WIND IN THE ROCKS
Though dew-dark when we set forth, there was stealing into the frozen air
an invisible white host of the wan-winged light--born beyond the
mountains, and already, like a drift of doves, harbouring grey-white high
up on the snowy skycaves of Monte Cristallo; and within us, tramping over
the valley meadows, was the incredible elation of those who set out
before the sun has risen; every minute of the precious day before us--we
had not lost one!
At the mouth of that enchanted chine, across which for a million years
the howdahed rock elephant has marched, but never yet passed from sight,
we crossed the stream, and among the trees began our ascent. Very far
away the first cowbells chimed; and, over the dark heights, we saw the
thin, sinking moon, looking like the white horns of some devotional beast
watching and waiting up there for the god of light. That god came
slowly, stalking across far over our heads from top to top; then, of a
sudden, his flame-white form was seen standing in a gap of the valley
walls; the trees flung themselves along the ground before him, and
censers of pine gum began swinging in the dark aisles, releasing their
perfumed steam.
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