The fierce stream below, the tiny speck made by the carriage and
horses straining against the hurricane of wind, the forests on the
farther bank climbing to endless heights of rain, the flowers in the
rock crannies lashed and torn, the gloom and chill which had thus
blotted out a June evening: all these impressions were impressions of
war, of struggle and attack, of forces unfriendly and overwhelming.
A certain restless and melancholy joy in the challenge of the storm,
indeed, Ashe felt, as many another strong man has felt before him, in a
similar emptiness of heart. But it was because of the mere provocation
of physical energy which it involved; not, as it would have been with
him in youth, because of the infinitude and vastness of nature,
breathing power and expectation into man:
"Effort, and expectation and desire--
And something evermore about to be!"
He flung the words upon the wind, which scattered them as soon as they
were uttered, merely that he might give them a bitter denial, reject for
himself, now and always, the temper they expressed. He had known it
well, none better!--gone to bed, and risen up with it--the mere joy in
the "mere living.
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