Page:Heroines of freethought (IA cu31924031228699).pdf/179

Rh the deep silence which precedes the dawn; of the gradual apparition of the haunting trees coming faintly out of the darkness; of the first level rays instantaneously piercing the woods to the very heart, and lighting them up into boundless ruddy colonnades, garlanded with wavy verdure, and carpeted with glittering wild flowers. Or he will dream of the clouds of gay butterflies and gauzy dragon-flies that hover over the noonday paths of the forest, or cluster about some graceful shrub, making it appear to bear all at once all the flowers of Eden. Or the golden moon will look down through his dream, making for him islands of light in an ocean of blackness. He may not see the stars but by glimpses; but the winged stars of these regions—the gleaming fireflies—radiate from every sleeping bough, and keep his eye in fancy busy in following their glancing, while his spirit sleeps in the deep charms of the summer night.” (Vol. I, page 91.)

She returned to England in the autumn