CONTINUED PERPLEXITIES.

93

splendour that was flowing from the sun. There were graceful curves,
reflected images, woody heights, soft distances; and over the whole
scene, far and near, the dissolving lights drifted steadily, enriching
it, every passing moment, with new marvels of colouring.

I stood like one bewitched. I drank it in, in a speechless rapture.
The world was new to me, and I had never seen anything like this
at home. But as I have said, a day came when I hegan to cease

I STOOD LIKE ONE BEWITCHED.

from noting the glories and the charms
which the moon and the sun and the
twilight wrought upon the river's face;
another day came when I ceased alto-
gether to note them. Then, if that
sunset scene had been repeated, I should
have looked upon it without rapture,
and should have commented upon it, inwardly, after this fashion: This
sun means that we are going to have wind to-morrow; that floating
log means that the river is rising, small thanks to it; that slanting
mark on the water refers to a bluff reef which is going to kill some-
body's steamboat one of these nights, if it keeps on stretching out like
that; those tumbling e boils' show a dissolving bar and a changing
^channel there; the lines and circles in the slick water over yonder