"If you do not love life itself," she said, "you love the beautiful
things of life, do you not? See yonder! There is what we call the
meeting of night and morning. One is glad to be alive at such a moment.
Look quickly! The light soon fades."
She pointed towards the east. Her companion gazed in that direction, and
uttered an exclamation,--almost a shout,--of wonder and admiration.
Within the space of the past few minutes the aspect of the heavens had
completely changed. The burning scarlet and violet hues had all melted
into a transparent yet brilliant shade of pale mauve,--as delicate as
the inner tint of a lilac blossom,--and across this stretched two
wing-shaped gossamer clouds of watery green, fringed with soft primrose.
Between these cloud-wings, as opaline in lustre as those of a
dragon-fly, the face of the sun shone like a shield of polished gold,
while his rays, piercing spear-like through the varied tints of emerald,
brought an unearthly radiance over the landscape--a lustre as though the
moon were, in some strange way, battling with the sun for mastery over
the visible universe though, looking southward, she could dimly be
perceived, the ghost of herself--a poor, fainting, pallid goddess,--a
perishing Diana.
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