The long gallery was very solitary, of course, at an hour like this, and
it was with a feeling of calm relief that I paced its lonely length,
stopping at intervals to look out upon the night; one of cloudy
sultriness, occasionally relieved by gusts of warm, damp wind, that bore
the distant odors of swamp and forest on its wings, and promised speedy
rain. Here and there in the dappled heavens were liquid purple spaces,
like the open sea described by Arctic voyagers, around which hung masses
of silvery clouds, projecting like ice cliffs; and into these patches of
sky the large yellow moon would now and then sail majestically, suddenly
emerging, like a ship from a fog, from the fleecy screen that veiled her
light, to cross these spaces, and plunge into mist and shadow again.
There was something in the whole effect calculated to absorb the mind of
an absent dreamer, intent on the future, and for the first time for many
weeks putting aside all foreign considerations, in favor of self too
long merged in others and neglected.
[Footnote 70: One of our most accomplished female writers; a native of
Mississippi, but long resident in Kentucky.]
* * * * *
=_Herman Melville, 1819-._= (Manual, p.
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