And the contrast pained him,--the idealistic dreamer then, the man of
business now,--so that a spirit of unworldly peace and beauty known only
to the soul in meditation laid its feathered finger upon his heart,
moving strangely the surface of the waters.
Harris shivered a little and looked out of the window of his empty
carriage. The train had long passed Hornberg, and far below the streams
tumbled in white foam down the limestone rocks. In front of him, dome
upon dome of wooded mountain stood against the sky. It was October, and
the air was cool and sharp, woodsmoke and damp moss exquisitely mingled
in it with the subtle odours of the pines. Overhead, between the tips of
the highest firs, he saw the first stars peeping, and the sky was a
clean, pale amethyst that seemed exactly the colour all these memories
clothed themselves with in his mind.
He leaned back in his corner and sighed. He was a heavy man, and he had
not known sentiment for years; he was a big man, and it took much to
move him, literally and figuratively; he was a man in whom the dreams of
God that haunt the soul in youth, though overlaid by the scum that
gathers in the fight for money, had not, as with the majority, utterly
died the death.
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