Innumerable parties of picnickers coming home at sunset cried, "Was there ever such a day as this ?" "It's you," the young men whispered; "Oh, it's you," the young women replied.

All old people and many sick people were drawn, were it only for a foot or two, into the open air, and prognosticated pleasant things about the course of the world.

As for the confidences and expressions of love that were heard not only in cornfields but in lamplit rooms, where the windows opened on the garden, and men with cigars kissed women with grey hairs, they were not to be counted.

Some said that the sky was an emblem of the life to come.

Long-tailed birds clattered and screamed, and crossed from wood to wood, with golden eyes in their plumage.
But while all this went on by land, very few people thought about the sea.