A judge of men would have seen in it proof that Mr. Gay's
character consisted less in a body of organized tendencies than in a
procession of impulses.
White with dust the turnpike crawled straight ahead between blood-red
clumps of sumach and bramble on which the faint sunlight still shone. At
intervals, where the dripping from over-hanging boughs had worn the
road into dangerous hollows, boles of young saplings had been placed
cross-wise in a corduroy pattern, and above them clouds of small belated
butterflies drifted in the wind like blown yellow rose leaves. On the
right the thin corn shocks looked as if they were sculptured in bronze,
and amid them there appeared presently the bent figure of a harvester,
outlined in dull blue against a sky of burnt orange. From the low
grounds beside the river a mist floated up, clinging in fleecy shreds to
the short grass that grew in and out of the bare stubble. The aspect of
melancholy, which was depressing even in the broad glare of noon, became
almost intolerable under the waning light of the afterglow. Miles of
loneliness stretched on either side of the turnpike, which trailed,
without fork or bend, into the flat distance beyond the great pine at
the bars.
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