and then of love—hot, burning love,—and I end with an invocation to the Faun of the wood ; for my desire is toward him.
It is warm and still. By fits and starts birds chirp—so softly that they seem to be whispering. I half expect to see a chamois, with long horns curling back from its brow, peep out wistfully from between the birch-trunks.
The sun, shining athwart the leaves that quiver, flings mobile twinkling rounds of light upon the pine-needles. I close my eyes. A great bright stain appears, followed by a succession of rainbow hues, ending in a spot of scarlet flame.
It is warm and still. The scent of wild thyme is in my nostrils. Behold me, a woodland nymph, awaiting the Faun of the woods!
I have left my vast ice-plains, my Northern Lights, my cold silvery dreams among the stalactites of my grottoes, and have come to bask in the strong sunshine of life.
And I welcome life with a peal of laughter, the outcome of many a day of tortured thought and fruitless pondering. I yield myself up to it, not from any internal weakness, but submitting to its brutality with a supreme
