which is eternal. So insidiously did it whis-
per these things, so delicately did the simple
and perfect melodies creep upon the spirit --
that Boyce felt no resentment, but from the
first listened as one who listens to learn, or
as one who, fainting on the hot road, hears, far
in the ferny deeps below, the gurgle of a spring.

Then came harmonies more intricate: fair
fabrics of woven sound, in the midst of which
gleamed golden threads of joy; a tapestry of
sound, multi-tinted, gallant with story and
achievement, and beautiful things. Boyce,
sitting on his absurd piazza, with his knees
jambed against the balustrade, and his chair
back against the dun-colored wall of his
house, seemed to be walking in the cathedral
of the redwood forest, with blue above him,
a vast hymn in his ears, pungent perfume in
his nostrils, and mighty shafts of trees lifting
themselves to heaven, proud and erect as pure
men before their Judge. He stood on a
mountain at sunrise, and saw the marvels of
the amethystine clouds below his feet, heard
an eternal and white silence, such as broods
among the everlasting snows, and saw an eagle
winging for the sun. He was in a city, and
away from him, diverging like the spokes of
a wheel, ran thronging streets, and to his sense
came the beat, beat, beat of the city's heart.