Page:Taylor - In the Dwellings of the Wilderness.djvu/26

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In the Dark Backward


to the suggestion in Merritt's words, and because that might be said in darkness, between men, which daylight would show up pitilessly and render commonplace and futilely inane, Deane said slowly, staring up at the great stars that blazed above them:

"I didn't know you felt like that about it too."

Merritt countered with quick eagerness.

"Do you? Can you put yourself back in that old vanished life when you come upon the broken corpse of it here, and reverence it? Can you build these ruined walls again, and see, instead of mounds and trenches, a city with tower-capped walls, and groves of trees, and gardens, teeming with human life whose very ashes

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