It was obviously absurd to regard these outward things on which he looked as anything but a frame of something completely different.

They were too silent, too still, too little self-sufficient to be complete in themselves.

Something solid lay embraced within them....
So, then, he stared and ruminated, scarcely perceiving that he thought, so intensely conscious was he of that of which he thought.

It was not that he understood anything of that on which he looked; he was but aware that there was something to be understood.

And the trees hung rigid above him, and the clear blue sky still a hard stone beyond them, not yet flushed with dawn; and the grass lay before him, contracted, it seemed, with cold, and every blade soaked in wet; and the silence was profound....
Then a cock crew, a mile away, a thin, brazen cry; a rabbit sat up, then crouched and bolted, and the spell faded like a mist.
Frank turned and walked back under the trees, to see if the Major was awake..