But why all these things are so neither I nor any other man can tell.
IN PATRIA
There is a certain valley, or rather profound cleft, through the living
rock of certain savage mountains through which there roars and tumbles in
its narrow trench the Segre, here but a few miles from its rising in the
upland grass.
This cleft is so disposed that the smooth limestone slabs of its western
wall stand higher than the gloomy steps of cliff upon its eastern, and
thus these western cliffs take the glare of the morning sunlight upon
them, or the brilliance of the moon when she is full or waning in the
first part of her course through the night.
The only path by which men can go down that gorge clings to the eastern
face of the abyss and is for ever plunged in shadow. Down this path I went
very late upon a summer night, close upon midnight, and the moon just past
the full. The air was exceedingly clear even for that high place, and the
moon struck upon the limestone of the sheer opposing cliffs in a manner
neither natural nor pleasing, but suggesting horror, and, as it were,
something absolute, too simple for mankind.
It was not cold, but there were no crickets at such a level in the
mountains, nor any vegetation there except a brush here and there clinging
between the rocks and finding a droughty rooting in their fissures.
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