Sleepy at first, but later developing violent desires as it
became conscious of its deep soul, it rolled, like some huge fluid being,
through all the countries we had passed, holding our little craft on its
mighty shoulders, playing roughly with us sometimes, yet always friendly
and well-meaning, till at length we had come inevitably to regard it as a
Great Personage.
How, indeed, could it be otherwise, since it told us so much of its secret
life? At night we heard it singing to the moon as we lay in our tent,
uttering that odd sibilant note peculiar to itself and said to be caused by
the rapid tearing of the pebbles along its bed, so great is its hurrying
speed. We knew, too, the voice of its gurgling whirlpools, suddenly
bubbling up on a surface previously quite calm; the roar of its shallows
and swift rapids; its constant steady thundering below all mere surface
sounds; and that ceaseless tearing of its icy waters at the banks. How it
stood up and shouted when the rains fell flat upon its face! And how its
laughter roared out when the wind blew up-stream and tried to stop its
growing speed! We knew all its sounds and voices, its tumblings and
foamings, its unnecessary splashing against the bridges; that
self-conscious chatter when there were hills to look on; the affected
dignity of its speech when it passed through the little towns, far too
important to laugh; and all these faint, sweet whisperings when the sun
caught it fairly in some slow curve and poured down upon it till the steam
rose.
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