Publisher's Synopsis
The autumn was creeping up on the earth, with winter holding by its skirts behind; but beforeI loose my hold of the garments of summer, I must write a chapter about a walk and a talk I hadone night with my wife. It had rained a good deal during the day, but as the sun went down theair began to clear, and when the moon shone out, near the full, she walked the heavens, not "likeone that hath been led astray," but as "queen and huntress, chaste and fair.""What a lovely night it is!" said Ethelwyn, who had come into my study-where I always satwith unblinded windows, that the night and her creatures might look in upon me-and had stoodgazing out for a moment."Shall we go for a little turn?" I said."I should like it very much," she answered. "I will go and put on my bonnet at once."In a minute or two she looked in again, all ready. I rose, laid aside my Plato, and went withher. We turned our steps along the edge of the down, and descended upon the breakwater, wherewe seated ourselves upon the same spot where in the darkness I had heard the voices of Joe andAgnes. What a different night it was from that! The sea lay as quiet as if it could not move forthe moonlight that lay upon it. The glory over it was so mighty in its peacefulness, that the wildelement beneath was afraid to toss itself even with the motions of its natural unrest. The moonwas like the face of a saint before which the stormy people has grown dumb. The rocks stood upsolid and dark in the universal aether, and the pulse of the ocean throbbed against them with alapping gush, soft as the voice of a passionate child soothed into shame of its vanished petulance.But the sky was the glory. Although no breath moved below, there was a gentle wind abroad inthe upper regions. The air was full of masses of cloud, the vanishing fragments of the one greatvapour which had been pouring down in rain the most of the day. These masses were all settingwith one steady motion eastward into the abysses of space; now obscuring the fair moon, nowsolemnly sweeping away from before her. As they departed, out shone her marvellous radiance, as calm as ever. It was plain that she knew nothing of what we called her covering, herobscuration, the dimming of her glory. She had been busy all the time weaving her lovelyopaline damask on the other side of the mass in which we said she was swallowed up
