Violet Jacob > Irresolute Catherine

38 IRRESOLUTE CATHERINE
round the chapel, having no shadows to
throw them into relief, were merged into
general neutrality with the grass. The
sharpest things in earth or heaven were the
angles of Cassiopeia’s Chair, high among the
constellations, which seemed not to look
down on the sleep-bound world but to be
turning from it, consciously aloof in their
unwavering detachment; a sight to affect
some not at all; to oppress some by the
comparison of infinitude with their own
individualities ; to raise others, by that very
comparison, to the height of ecstasy—the
dim foreknowledge of what that true sense
of proportion must be which swallows the
individual into the immutable and divine.
At the back of Mrs. Job’s house the
small barn, which had been made habitable
as a lodging for travelling preachers, con¬
tained a single light; and Mrs. Job, whose
eye had caught the glimmer, crossed the
intervening space in the darkness and
pushed the door open. Catherine Dennis