Have you seen an old, old stone on the seashore, when the brisk waves are beating upon it from all sides, at high tide, on a sunny spring day—beating and sparkling and caressing it, and drenching its mossy head with crumbling pearls of glittering foam?
The stone remains the same stone, but brilliant colours start forth upon its surly exterior.
They bear witness to that distant time when the molten granite was only just beginning to harden and was all glowing with fiery hues.
Thus also did young feminine souls recently attack my old heart from all quarters,—and beneath their caressing touch it glowed once more with colours which faded long ago,—with traces of its pristine fire!
The waves have retreated … but the colours have not yet grown dim, although a keen breeze is drying them.
May, 1879.
DOVES
I was standing on the crest of a sloping hill; in front of me lay outspread, and motley of hue, the ripe rye, now like a golden, again like a silvery sea.
But no surge was coursing across this sea; no sultry breeze was blowing; a great thunder-storm was brewing.
Round about me the sun was still shining hotly and dimly; but in the distance, beyond the rye, not too far away, a dark-blue thunder-cloud lay in a heavy mass over one half of the horizon.