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The big lamp above Joe's workbench was unlighted so the little shop was in darkness except for the fitful wavering of the ruddy wood fire in the big stove. The streets were empty and quiet.
Below our camp, upon entering the lake, there was a wide, flat stretch of sand wash from the river, and below this from the lake shore on either side, great barren, grim hills rose in solemn majesty, across whose rocky face the wind swept the snow in fitful gusts and squalls.
"Oh, Faynie, my love, my darling, my precious, why did you brave the fury of the tempest to keep the tryst to-night? I am here, but I did not expect you, much as I love to see you. I was praying you would not venture out. Oh, my precious, what is it?" he cried in alarm, as the fitful light of the gas lamp that hung over the arched gate fell full upon her.
He knew, therefore, that Jeannette had not been there. According to his previous determination, he went on to meet her, hoping that before this she might have set out. The rain now began to fall, and the wind blew with fitful gusts. He did not care for either himself, but he was sorry that Jeannette should be exposed to the storm. He felt nearly sure that she would come, in spite of it.
We drove through the silent streets of Boston, and out into the country, in an open carriage, with the thermometer many degrees below the freezing-point, yet the dryness of the atmosphere prevented any feeling of cold. The air was pure, still, and perfectly elastic; a fitful aurora lighted our way, and the iron hoofs of the fast-trotting ponies rattled cheerily along the frozen ground.
Twice as he essayed to speak his voice failed him, and an indistinct murmur came forth from his hueless lips, and died away like a fitful and feeble wind.
Once through the obscuring branches the fitful yellow of a camp-fire was dimly visible, but the ravine twisted so that I could not determine whether this was from Federal or Confederate lines. Anyhow no eye saw us creep past, and no suspicious voice challenged.
There was something pitiable in it. Perhaps this was because there is something more pathetic in a comical face grown solemn than in the most melancholy countenance in the world. At last the moon rose and the fire decided to burn. With the seventh attempt it flared energetically; then settled to a steady glow of possible flap-jacks. But its smoke was bitter, and the evening wind fitful.
Cases have been known where successive afflictions have been attributed to some defect in the resting-places of the dead; their ancestors, "after life's fitful fever," were not sleeping well, and at great expense the bones have been removed to another place; but it is an extreme case when they venture to disturb the dead. Every true son of the Empire of the Sun echoes the anathema of Shakespeare,
To have to sit and endure the presence of a bore day after day; to feel your cheerful spirits begin to sink as his footstep sounds on the stair, and utterly vanish away as his tiresome form enters the door; to suffer through his anecdotes and die slowly to his reminiscences; to feel always the fetters of his clogging presence; to long hopelessly for one single day's privacy; to note with a shudder, by and by, that to contemplate his funeral in fancy has ceased to soothe, to imagine him undergoing in strict and fearful detail the tortures of the ancient Inquisition has lost its power to satisfy the heart, and that even to wish him millions and millions and millions of miles in Tophet is able to bring only a fitful gleam of joy; to have to endure all this, day after day, and week after week, and month after month, is an affliction that transcends any other that men suffer.
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