The turmoil and bustle of the outside world is not heard on the placid stretches of these quiet undulations. Here the weary spirit finds repose among elemental forms which the ravages of civilization have left unspoiled. If we take beautiful minds and beautiful hearts into the dune country, we will find only beauty in it; and if we have not the love of beauty, we walk in darkness.
Filmy veils of white mist gather in the hollows during the still, cool hours of the night, and begin to move like curling smoke wreaths with the first faint breaths of dawn. The early hours of the morning are full of strange enchantment, and dawn on the dunes brings many wonders. When the first gray tones of light appear, the night-prowlers seek seclusion, and the stillness is broken by the crows. A single note is heard from among the boughs of a far-off pine, and in a few moments the air is filled with the noisy conversation of these interesting birds—mingled with the cries of the gulls and terns, which have come in from the lake and are searching for the refuse of the night waves. The beams of a great light burst through the trees—the leaves and the sands are touched with gold—and the awakening of the hills has come.
The twilights bring forth manifold beauties which the bright glare of the day has kept within their hiding-places. The rich purples that have been concealed among secret recesses creep out on
(From the Author’s Etching)
DAWN IN THE HILLS
the open spaces to meet the silvery light of the rising moon, and the colors of the dusk come to weave a web of phantasy over the landscape.
(From the Author’s Etching)