One summer evening, when the moon was at the full, and cloud-shadows glided imperceptibly over the chimney-pots, as curses that have found no utterance and come dejectedly home to roost, I wandered into my back-garden, and caught the God of the Period napping in the moonshine on one of my celery-beds.
He rose up suddenly and reposed awhile in space, with his head resting on the back of the Great Bear, and one foot on the arm of Cassiopeia's Chair, while with the other he skimmed the cream off the Milky Way. And he seemed to be everywhere and yet nowhere in particular, and he said nothing, and I was afraid to make a remark—and there was no sound, save that of the boundless, inconceivable silence which was rumbling round the corner.
Presently he came down to the celery-bed once more.
"What are you seeking for so late?" asked he; "your face looks so long and solemn, and your eyes are hollow and full of woe. Have you been having anything indigestible for supper?"
"I am in trouble about Humanity," I replied; "for, though I loathe and despise them individually, collectively I love them dearly."
"What's the matter with Humanity?" asked the God, as he squatted amid the celery.
"They are growing so deadly dull," I answered. "I am Young Garnaway, the Pessimistic Prose Poet, and it pains me to see how utterly they have lost their perception of the ridiculous, which is the backbone of real enjoyment. So I came out to see if by any chance the backbone was hidden under one of the flower-pots."
The Period-God once more pervaded the endless space that glittered in darkling infinitude round about and right ahead of him. It seemed to me, when he returned, that he had been laughing; but suddenly I saw him pull himself together, and frown.
And from afar a gurgling rose through the gloom, and darkness fell upon my back-garden, knocking a basilisk off the waterbutt, and above the garden-walls there appeared a crowd of rude persons, in pot hats, with red lolling tongues and wide grinning mouths, holding their sides with inextinguishable mirth. All at once the giggles turned into the booing of Philistines, and there was a fantastic shadowy horseplay, which rolled nearer and nearer.