Yet Heaven's benign untroubled blue carried no cloud upon its face,
because one breaking human heart had thus breathed into it its unholy
secret. Around that whole enormous circle such cries and such
confessions were being poured like noxious vapours, from a thousand
cities; but that incorruptible ether remained unsullied as on the first
morning, the black smoke of it all lost in the optimism of God.
On some days he would live over again the scene with Wonder in the wood
with unbearable vividness.
"Why, those are only words, silly Daddy!"--How many times a day did he
not hear that quaint little voice making, with a child's profundity,
that tremendous criticism upon literature.
He had silenced her with the music of words, as he had silenced his own
heart and soul with the same music, but they were still only words none
the less. Ah! if she were only here to-day, he would bring her something
more beautiful than words--or toadstools.
He shuddered as he thought of the loathsome form his decaying fancy had
taken, that morning by the Three Black Ponds. He had filled the small
outstretched hands with Nature's filth and poison.
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