The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864: Devoted To Literature And National PolicyVarious
History
The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864: Devoted To Literature And National Policy
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; United States -- Politics and government -- 19th century -- Periodicals
And by degrees, as the tide of sensation, thinned itself, lying back
with closed eyes, while the long train swept on through the torrid day,
separate pictures came before his inner sight. Just as keen and clear
were they as when they first fell on his vision. He had not blurred nor
dimmed their outlines with frequent recalling and suggestions of
difference.
A narrow strip of gray sand, ribbed with the wave wash to the very foot
of the reddish brown bowlders that bounded it. Standing thereon a
slender woman's figure, clad in quiet gray. The face was turned toward
him--a dark, unflushed face, with calm, fixed mouth, and clear gray eyes
under straight-drawn brows and long, separate, lashes. Fine, lustreless,
silky hair was pushed back into a net glittering with shining specks
under the narrow-brimmed straw hat. A face full of a waiting look, not
hopeful nor expectant, simply unsettled and watchful, yet fresh, and
rounded with the dimples and childlike curves of eighteen. Whatever of
yearning and unrest the years had brought lingered only about the
shadowy eyes and fine mouth. There were no haggard nor worn outlines,
and a baby's skin could not have been softer and finer.
At her feet crisped the shining ripples of the incoming tide. Far
beyond, calm and burnished, stretched the summer sea into the dreamy
distance, where the white noon sky, stricken through with intensest
light and heat, dropped down a palpitating arch to meet it. And in all
the dazzle of blue and white and silver and bare shining gray, she
stood, a straight, slender, haughty little figure, as indefinite of
color as all the rest; all but a narrow strip of scarlet at her throat,
falling in a flaming line to her waist. The shimmering atmosphere seemed
to pant about her; and through the high noon, over the still waters and
sleeping shore, hummed the peering strains of a weird little song. She
was singing softly:
'For men must work and women must weep,
And the sooner 'tis over the sooner to sleep.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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