At length the minuteness of Nature oppressed me. The thousand odors,
spicy, acrid, aromatic, honeyed, that an autumnal dew expressed from
every herb, through that sense that is the slave of association,
recalled my youth, my boyhood, the free and careless hours I knew no
more, when, on just such mornings of hazy and splendid autumns, I had
just so lain on the fern-beds, heedless of every beauty that haunted the
woods, full of fresh life, rejoicing in dog and gun and rod as no man
ever rejoices in title-deeds or stocks or hoarded gold. The reminiscence
stung me to the quick; I could endure no more. Rising, I went on, and
through the oak-wood came to the brink of the river, and in a vague
weariness sat down upon the massive water-wall, and looked over into
the dark brown stream. It was deep below me; a little above were clear
shallows, where the water-spider pursued its toil of no result, and
cast upon the yellow sand beneath a shadow that was not a shadow, but,
refracted from the broken surface, spots of glittering light, clustered
like the diamonds of a brooch, separate, yet linked, and tremulously
bright. This, also, did I note; but below my feet the river flowed
darker and more deeply, darkness and depth broken only by the glancing
fins of little fishes, that slanted downward, catching a gleam as they
went. No other light pierced the sullen, apprehensive flood that rolled
past in tranquil gloom, leaden from the skies above, and without ripple
or fall to break its glassy quiet.
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