Wolf stopped dead-still and gazed at what he saw, as ever more nearly and more nearly what he saw became what he imagined. This was what he wanted! This was what he sought! The brown earth was that tawny-skinned centaur; and the reason why the world was all so green about him was because all living souls⁠—the souls of grass-blades and tree-roots and river-reeds⁠—shared, after their kind, in the drinking up of that blue immensity by the great mouth of clay!

He moved on now again and slowly passed the bent tree. His thoughts relaxed and grew limp after his moment of ecstasy; but such as they were, like languid-winged herons, they flapped heavily over the dykes and ditches of his life.