At last we came to a forest of trees so enormous that they made me tremble to look at them.  The hugeness of their stems gave them an unearthly appearance; for they rose hundreds of feet from the ground before they burst out far, far above us, into colossal masses of vast-leaved foliage.  I cannot sufficiently convey the impressions of awe with which the sight of these monster trees inspired me.  There seemed to me something pitiless and phantom-like in the severity of their enormous bare trunks, stretching on without break or branch into the distance—­overhead, and there at length giving birth to a sea of dark waving plumes, the rustle of which reached my ears as the sound of tossing waves.

Passing beneath these vast trees we came to others of smaller growth, but still of the same type,—­straight-stemmed, with branching foliage at their summit.  Here we stood to rest, and as we paused I became aware that the trees around me were losing their color, and turning by imperceptible degrees into stone.  In nothing was their form or position altered; only a cold, grey hue overspread them, and the intervening spaces between their stems became filled up, as though by a cloud which gradually grew substantial.  Presently I raised my eyes, and lo! overhead were the arches of a vast cathedral, spanning the sky and hiding it from my sight.  The tree stems had become tall columns of grey stone; and their plumed tops, the carven architraves and branching spines of Gothic sculpture.  The incense rolled in great dense clouds to their outstretching arms, and, breaking against them, hung in floating, fragrant wreaths about their carven sprays.  Looking downwards to the altar, I found it covered with flowers and plants and garlands, in the midst of which stood a great golden crucifix, and I turned to my guide wishing to question him, but he had disappeared, and I could not find him.  Then a vast crowd of worshipers surrounded me, a priest before the altar raised the pyx and the patten in his hands.  The people fell on their knees, and bent their heads, as a great field of corn over which a strong wind passes.  I knelt with the rest, and adored with them in silence.

—­Paris, July 1877

VIII.  The Enchanted Woman*

The first consciousness which broke my sleep last night was one of floating, of being carried swiftly by some invisible force through a vast space; then, of being gently lowered; then of light, until, gradually, I found myself on