For some vague yearning to humanity seemed to draw
this dark and passionless void towards them. The vast protecting
maternity of Nature leant hushed and breathless over the solitude. Warm
currents of air rose occasionally from the valley, which one might have
believed were sighs from its full and overflowing breast, or a grateful
coolness swept their cheeks and hair when the tranquil heights around
them were moved to slowly respond. Odors from invisible bay and
laurel sometimes filled the air; the incense of some rare and remoter
cultivated meadow beyond their ken, or the strong germinating breath
of leagues of wild oats, that had yellowed the upland by day. In the
silence and shadow, their voices took upon themselves, almost without
their volition, a far-off confidential murmur, with intervals of meaning
silence--rather as if their thoughts had spoken for themselves, and they
had stopped wonderingly to listen. They talked at first vaguely to this
discreet audience of space and darkness, and then, growing bolder, spoke
to each other and of themselves. Invested by the infinite gravity of
nature, they had no fear of human ridicule to restrain their youthful
conceit or the extravagance of their unimportant confessions.
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