The Argosy — page 308: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Marriage i the Dark. 285 “ Ah, well, your railing was innocent enough. You would be more or less than human, if you didn’t feel a little bitter at times, and it is better to give it vent, and have done with it. May I ask, to adopt the professional manner, what was the exciting cause this evening ?” *‘ Perverseness, doctor, that’s all; and a vapourish longing for the moon: or, what to me is as difficult of attainment, a peep at the sunset. A foolish wish—my sun set for ever eleven years ago.” ‘Tet me enlist my eyes in your service, for once, and describe it to you as best I can.” “IT thank you, Doctor Saxon; it would give me great pleasure; the greatest pleasure. Next to seeing for oneself, the most pleasant thing, I should imagine, is to look through the eyes of other people.” “TI don’t think,” said the doctor, with humorous gravity, ‘that as a describer of sunsets I should take rank in the very first class. I wish, for your sake, that I were a Ruskin, or a Théophile Gautier. Anyhow, I will do my best. In the first place, then, it happens to be a very fine sunset this evening.” ‘** T was sure of it.” ‘“‘From where we are standing, one can just catch a glimpse of the river, as it winds round under a low wooded hill. Perhaps you remember it, and the slender, thread-like spire that rises among the trees at the top?” “Tt is so long since I saw it, though I have lived here all my life: but yes, I think I do remember it.” ‘Well, the hill and the trees look black now against the sunset; and the spire is like a little sharply-cut silhouette, standing out against a gold background. As for the river, it is cool and dark where it runs along under the hill-side, but beyond that the sun strikes it, and it glows like a flame.” 66 Ah ! ) “Across the sky are drawn many irregular bars of clouds, looking like long purple promontories running far away into a wide sea of gold and orange and green, and this sea gets brighter and brighter as it nears the great central glow, and then fades imperceptibly into the quiet blue of the night, out of which the stars are already beginning to look down on us.” “How very beautiful it must be,” said I, with an involuntary sigh. “Beautiful it is, but that hardly expresses it all. It is grand, solemn, imposing; looking at it one’s mind seems somehow to get purified, one’s whole being enlarged, you are filled with a sense of mental and physical spaciousness. To me it looks like the vista of a world to come—appears the promise of a future state. Itis sublime; the element of beauty is subordinate. The purely beautiful,” murmured the doctor under his breath, ‘‘ is nearer at hand.” The words, however, were not so softly spoken but that my quick ear had caught their import. COMICOOOKS.Cc©