inhabited desolation, in a black chasm filled with
the sound of whirling leaves and threshing branches.

The morning, breaking late and grey and cold,
appeared equally difficult, barren, in vain. The
kitchen stove, continually neglected, went continually
out, the grate became clogged with ashes, the
chimney refused to draw. He relit it, on his knees,
the dog patiently at his side; he fanned the kindling
into flames, poured on the coal, the shining black
dust coruscating in instant, gold tracery. He
bedded the horse more warmly, fed him in a species
of mechanical, inattentive regularity.

Finally the list of timber options he possessed was
completed with the names of their original owners
and the amounts for which they had been bought.
A deep sense of satisfaction, of accomplishment, took
the place of his late anxiety. Even the weather
changed, became complacent -- the valley was filled
with the blue mirage of Indian summer, the apparent
return of a warm, beneficent season. The decline of
the year seemed to halt, relent, in still, sunny hours.
It was as though nature, death, decay, had been arrested,
set at naught; that man might dwell forever
amid peaceful memories, slumberous vistas, lost in
that valley hidden by shimmering veils from all the
implacable forces that bring the alternation of cause
and effect upon subservient worlds and men.

[[334]]

p333 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p334w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p335

v?