IX.
THEN only the enormous double-vision of sky and sea.
The sky: a cupola of blinding blue, shading down and paling into
spectral green at the rim of the world,—and all fleckless, save
at evening. Then, with sunset, comes a light gold-drift of
little feathery cloudlets into the West,—stippling it as with a
snow of fire.
The sea: no flower-tint may now make my comparison for the splendor
of its lucent color. It has shifted its hue;—for we have entered
into the Azure Stream: it has more than the magnificence of burning
cyanogen. …
But, at night, the Cross of the South appears no more. And
other changes come, as day succeeds to day,—a lengthening of the
hours of light, a longer lingering of the after-glow,—a cooling
of the wind. Each morning the air seems a little cooler, a
little rarer;—each noon the sky looks a little paler, a little
further away—always heightening, yet also more shadowy, as if its
color, receding, were dimmed by distance,—were coming more
faintly down from vaster altitudes.
… Mademoiselle is petted like a child by the lady passengers.
And every man seems anxious to aid in making her voyage a
pleasant one. For much of which, I think, she may thank her
eyes!
