“The princes and princesses, who are the Grizzly Giant’s family and help him reign over his subjects, have to go and stand at a good distance, or they would lose their majesty in comparison with him.  When we had left the horses (near a fascinating log-cabin in the woods), and Mr. Hilliard had arranged for their comfort, we walked about, picking out the princes and princesses and knowing quite well from the look of them which was which.  Some of the trees are commandingly masculine; others, though as immense, graciously feminine.

“It sounds rather confusing to call the trees sometimes columns of a cathedral or palace, sometimes royal people; but any one who has come to visit them even once would understand.  If I were to be here longer, I should see them in a great many other different phases, I’m sure.  And I may perhaps see them again.  But nothing will ever be the same.  I have had such thoughts to-day!  I wanted to put each idea, small and big, on paper, to remember; but I find that they won’t let themselves be written down.  They are as intangible as the incense in this cathedral, as impossible to put in black and white as it would be to jot down in notes the music that pours out from the pipes of the unseen organ, or to paint the light that streams through the cathedral windows.  And what a magical light it is!  There are other trees in this forest, besides the Sequoias; but it is on the redwoods alone that the light concentrates, just as limelight is turned upon the leading characters of a stage drama.  They burn with their own ruddy fire, while their neighbour trees (overgrown with golden-green moss that makes sleeves for outstretched arms, and gold embroidery for dark drapery) gleam out among the redwoods’ flaming pillars like lighted candelabra.  I shall see those lights behind my eyelids to-night, as I saw the sunset light on Stonehenge; the moon touching the Giralda of Seville; and my first alpenglow.  But what Stonehenge is to England, the Giralda to Spain, and the Alps to Switzerland, that, I think, is the Mariposa Forest of giant Sequoias to California.

“If I had been an atheist, I believe I should suddenly have been taught the lesson of God among the great redwoods.  And nobody could be heavy-hearted here, or frivolous.  I feel that the same light which burns like fire in these trees burns in my veins; a vast wave of life, vitalizing all creation and making it kin.  I am a poor relation of these wonderful giants.  Also I am a cousin of the robins and chipmunks that shared our picnic luncheon, and the dinner we finished a little while ago.  I am nearer than I was yesterday to all humanity, and to——­”

Angela’s pencil stopped its weaving back and forth across the small white pages, pausing as if of its own accord.  She looked at the last words she had written and shut the book.  Yes, she was near to all humanity; but nearer than any to one who was all the world to her.  Suddenly she felt, with poignant intensity, the nearness not only of his body to hers, but the nearness of their souls.  Her spirit and his touched in the silence of the forest.  She did not look at him yet, but she knew that he was looking at her, and that his heart was in the look, calling to hers.  And she could not shut her ears to the call.