In such a moment one feels a sudden sense of loneliness, as if a friend were secretly preparing to desert one to his foes.
In this pause of the season one finds the subtle beauty and completeness of the summer growing upon him more and more.

While the work was going forward, there was such profound interest in the process that one watched the turn and direction of the chisel rather than the surface of the marble slowly answering, line by line, the overmastering thought; but now that the months of toil are past, and all the implements of labour are cast aside, the finished work absorbs all thought and fills all imaginations.

So vast is it, and on such a scale of magnitude, that one hardly saw before the delicacy and exquisite adjustment of parts, the marvellous art that framed the smallest leaf and touched the vagrant wild flower still blooming on the edges of the woodland.

It is, after all, when the great festival days are over and the thronging crowds have gone, that the true worshipper finds the temple beautiful with the highest visions of worship, and in the silence of deserted aisles and shrines sees with new wonder the workmanship of the Deity.

For all such this is the most solemn of all the recurring Sabbaths of the year; the hush at noonday and at even is itself an unspoken prayer.