Page:The Yellow Book - 08.djvu/298

animate world. He had purposely chosen for such moments this desolate spot, because from it not even a human habitation could be seen.

Conqueror of the universe, full to overflowing of majesty and power, conscious even to sorrow of his own omnipotence, he stood there and gazed around him. The youth, the strength, the ambition, the perseverance, the dauntlessness within him joined with the beautiful exhilaration of the air to produce a feeling of majestic supremacy. There was the world before him; there was he, imperial.

His mind went back a little. He had caught the day before, while he officiated at the funeral of an old man from the fjelds, a transitory impression that had pleased him. It was while he headed the procession and chanted the scriptural sentences that came at the beginning of the service. Between him and the coffin placed on its shabby bier, a farm trolly, and pulled by a mountain pony, had come on foot the old man's near relations, and next after them all the crowd of followers that could be collected from the country-side. The dirge-like chant was familiar enough to him to permit his thoughts to wander while he sang, but because he had had to lead the procession over the pathless meads he had not been able to follow up his ideas so carefully and absorbingly as here on this rocky promontory. The particularly gratifying one that he had caught and stowed away for future enjoyment was a strange mixture of the sensations of the moment. He had left it for absorbing contemplation until a more convenient season. He had thought he was looking inside that rude coffin and gazing upon the seamed, grey face of the aged man, pathetic in its image of care, yet beautiful exceedingly in its meekness and patience. And without knowing at the moment why he thus spoke, he thought he had quoted these words:"God,