. From palm to glacier; with an interlude: Brazil, Bermuda, and Alaska;. and faithful struggle, and patientfailure, and lofty aspiration vanishes in a moment,as the poet says of his camp-fire in the woods, when Half a centurys patient growthGoes up in an instants flame. I cannot think, I can only feel, and what I feel is aquivering, humiliating sense that I am nothing but amiserable human being, handicapped with a for a volume of Emerson to restore my droopingcourage! Why should the air seem so stifling ? The roomis immense. It runs the whole width of the house,with two windows at eithe
. From palm to glacier; with an interlude: Brazil, Bermuda, and Alaska;. and faithful struggle, and patientfailure, and lofty aspiration vanishes in a moment,as the poet says of his camp-fire in the woods, when Half a centurys patient growthGoes up in an instants flame. I cannot think, I can only feel, and what I feel is aquivering, humiliating sense that I am nothing but amiserable human being, handicapped with a for a volume of Emerson to restore my droopingcourage! Why should the air seem so stifling ? The roomis immense. It runs the whole width of the house,with two windows at either end, and five long win-dows in front opening on a balcony. But the intensefragrance from the garden deepens with the night,till odors keep one more conscious of flowers thanwould the flowers themselves. Two fan palms,whose enormous, yet perfectly regular, branchingstems reach across all five of the windows like a lat-tice, seem to throw shadows on the floor. I wishthey would go away! but they never even stir. Ifeel as if put to sleep in a green-house, as if breath-. UNDER THE PALMS. 41 ing the lifeless breath of a satin sachet. Seven win-dows and no air! Did I say the night was silent ? Suddenly thesilence begins to thrill. I can hear the insects dron-ing, the fruit ripening, the flowers budding. Nay,listen ! I can hear the white orange petals, out therein the grove, falling, falling, falling, though there is nota breath of air to make them move. The moonlightis like a thrilling touch upon my hand, I seem tohave reached what George Eliot calls the hitherside of silence, where you can hear the grass growand the squirrels heart beat. I remember whatLafcadio Hearn said in Martinique of that tropicalcalm which is not silence, for the ear fancies it canhear the great movement of composition and of de-composition perpetually going on within. And nowthe flowers, of whose silence I had complained, be-gin to talk. Listen ! it is well that you have come here. Wehave something to say to
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectbrazild, bookyear1892
