Instantly a spell was upon him;
long he gazed into its depths. It was more than deep; it was bottomless.
In some magic solution he there beheld himself and all the world;
imperiously it commanded his being. To his ear utterance came from that
lucent abyss, a murmur of voices, a confusion of tones; and then
invisible presences seemed to reach out greedy hands for him. It was no
place for a small boy, and his short legs twinkled as he fled.
Out in the friendly, familiar yard, he looked curiously about him,
basking in the sudden peace of it. A light wind stirred in the trees,
the sky was a void of blue, the scent of the lilacs came to him. That
was all reassuring; but something more came: a consciousness that he
could translate only as something vast, yet without shape or substance,
that opened to him, enfolded him, lifted him. It was a vision of
boundless magnitudes and himself among them--among them and with a power
he could put upon them. While it lasted he had a child's dim vision of
the knowledge that life would be big for him. He heard again the
confusion of voices, and his own among them, in far spacious places. He
always remembered this moment. In after years he knew it had been given
him then to run an eye along the line of his destiny.
The moment passed; his mind was again vacant. He picked a green apple
from the low tree under which he stood, bit into it, chewed without
enthusiasm, then hurled the remnant at an immature rabbit that he saw
regarding him from the edge of the lilac clump.
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