The entire range of hills was covered with a dense and tangled
timber-growth, save where the wood-cutters had cleared out a steep,
rectangular space, and dotted it with pale-yellow lumber-piles, that
looked as if nothing less than a miracle kept them from rolling over and
over down to the bottom of the valley, or where the gray, irregular face
of a precipice denied all foothold to the boldest roots. There was
nothing smooth, swelling, or graceful, in the aspect of the range. They
seemed, hills though they were, to be inspired with the souls of
mountains, which were ever seeking to burst the narrow bounds that
confined them. And, for his part, the professor liked them much better
than if they had been mountains indeed. They gave an impression of
greater energy and vitality, and were all the more comprehensible and
lovable, because not too sublime and vast.
In another way, his garden afforded as much pleasure to the professor as
his hills. From having planned and, in a great measure, made it himself,
he took in it a peculiar pride and interest. He knew just the position
of every plant and shrub, tree and flower, and in what sort of condition
they were as regarded luxuriance and vigor. Sitting quietly in his
chair, his fancy could wander in and out along the winding paths,
mindful of each new opening vista or backward scene--of where the shadow
fell, and where the sunshine slept hottest; could inhale the fragrance
of the tea-rose bush, and pause beneath the branches of the elm-tree;
the material man remaining all the while motionless, with closed
eyelids, or, now and then, half opening them to verify, by a glance,
some questionable recollection. This utilization, by the mental
faculties alone, of knowledge acquired by physical experience, always
produces an agreeable sub-consciousness of power--the ability to be, at
the same time, active and indolent.
In about the centre of the garden, flopped and tinkled a weak-minded
little fountain. The shrubbery partly hid it from view of the balcony,
but the small, irregular sound of its continuous fall was audible in the
quiet of the summer afternoons. Weak-minded though it was, Professor
Valeyon loved to listen to it. It suited him better than the full-toned
rush and splash of a heavier water-power; there was about it a human
uncertainty and imperfection which brought it nearer to his heart.
Moreover, weak and unambitious though it was, the fountain must have
been possessed of considerable tenacity of purpose, to say the least,
otherwise, doing so little, it would not have been persistent enough to
keep on doing it at all. It was really wonderful, on each recurring
year, to behold this poor little water-spout effecting neither more nor
less than the year before, and with no signs of any further aspirations
for the future.