But what after all is one night? A short space, especially when the darknessdims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faintgreen quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of the wave. Night,however, succeeds to night. The winter holds a pack of them in store anddeals them equally, evenly, with indefatigable fingers. They lengthen;they darken. Some of them hold aloft clear planets, plates of brightness.

　　The autumn trees, ravaged as they are, take on the flash of tattered flagskindling in the gloom of cool cathedral caves where gold letters onmarble pages describe death in battle and how bones bleach and burn faraway in Indian sands. The autumn trees gleam in the yellow moonlight,in the light of harvest moons, the light which mellows the energy of labour,and smooths the stubble, and brings the wave lapping blue to theshore.

　　It seemed now as if, touched by human penitence and all its toil, divinegoodness had parted the curtain and displayed behind it, single,distinct, the hare erect; the wave falling; the boat rocking; which, did wedeserve them, should be ours always. But alas, divine goodness, twitchingthe cord, draws the curtain; it does not please him; he covers histreasures in a drench of hail, and so breaks them, so confuses them that ............