Nostromo - A Tale of the Seaboard.pdf - Planet eBook

the enormous side of the mountain, thinking that in thissight, as in a piece of inspired music, there could be foundtogether the utmost delicacy of shaded expression and astupendous magnificence of effect.Sir John arrived too late to hear the magnificent and inaudiblestrain sung by the sunset amongst the high peaks ofthe Sierra. It had sung itself out into the breathless pause ofdeep dusk before, climbing down the fore wheel of the diligenciawith stiff limbs, he shook hands with the engineer.They gave him his dinner in a stone hut like a cubicalboulder, with no door or windows in its two openings; abright fire of sticks (brought on muleback from the first valleybelow) burning outside, sent in a wavering glare; andtwo candles in tin candlesticks—lighted, it was explainedto him, in his honour—stood on a sort of rough camp table,at which he sat on the right hand of the chief. He knewhow to be amiable; and the young men of the engineeringstaff, for whom the surveying of the railway track had theglamour of the first steps on the path of life, sat there, too,listening modestly, with their smooth faces tanned by theweather, and very pleased to witness so much affability inso great a man.Afterwards, late at night, pacing to and fro outside, hehad a long talk with his chief engineer. He knew him wellof old. This was not the first undertaking in which theirgifts, as elementally different as fire and water, had workedin conjunction. From the contact of these two personalities,who had not the same vision of the world, there was generateda power for the world’s service—a subtle force that