and heaven mingled; and gusts of wind which, as they roared by over a
thousand straining trees and passed off with hoarse, volleying sounds,
seemed to mimic the echoing thunder. And the leaves--the millions and
myriads of sere, cast-off leaves, heaped ankle-deep under the desolate
giants of the wood, and everywhere, in the hollows of the earth, lying
silent and motionless, as became dead, fallen things--suddenly catching a
mock fantastic life from the wind, how they would all be up and
stirring, every leaf with a hiss like a viper, racing, many thousands at
a time, over the barren spaces, all hurriedly talking together in their
dead-leaf language! until, smitten with a mightier gust, they would rise
in flight on flight, in storms and stupendous, eddying columns, whirled
up to the clouds, to fall to the earth again in showers, and freckle the
grass for roods around. Then for a moment, far off in heavens, there
would be a rift, or a thinning of the clouds, and the sunbeams, striking
like lightning through their ranks, would illumine the pale blue mist,
the slanting rain, the gaunt black boles and branches, glittering with
wet, casting a momentary glory over the ocean-like tumult of nature.

In the condition I was in, with a relaxed body and dejected mind, this
tempestuous period, which would have only afforded fresh delight to a
person in perfect health, had no charm for my spirit; but, on the
contrary, it only served to intensify my gloom. And yet day after day it
drew me forth, although in my weakness I shivered in the rough gale, and
shrank from the touch of the big cold drops the clouds flung down on me.
It fascinated me, like the sight of armies contending in battle, or of
some tragic action from which the spectator cannot withdraw his gaze.
For I had become infected with strange fancies, so persistent and somber
that they were like superstitions. It seemed to me that not I but nature
had changed, that the familiar light had passed like a kindly expression
from her countenance, which was now charged with an awful menacing gloom