Through the
glinting bustle of the crowd and the richness of nature my father
peacefully breathed, in half-withdrawn brooding, either pursuing our
pebble warfare with kindest stateliness, or strolling beside lovely
plots of shadowed grass, fragrant from lofty trees of box. An element
by no means slight in the rejoicing of my mind, when I was with him of
a Sunday afternoon, was his cigar, which he puffed at very
deliberately, as if smoking were a rite. The aroma was wonderful. The
classicism which followed my parents about in everything of course
connected itself with my father's chief luxury, in the form of a
bronze match-box, given him in Rome by my sister, upon which an autumn
scene of harvest figures was modeled with Greek elegance, and to this
we turned our eyes admiringly during the lighting of the cigar. There
was a hunter returning to a home draped with the grape, bringing still
more of that fruit, and a rabbit and bird, hung upon a pole, while his
wife and child were ever so comfortably disposed upon the threshold,
and the hunting-dog affectionately lapped the young matron's hand. An
autumn was also depicted on the reverse, presumably a year earlier
than the one just described, where two lovers stood among sheaves of
wheat, their sickles in hand, and the youth held up a bunch of grapes
which the maiden, down-looking, gently raised her arm to receive. At
last it would grow too late to play another game, and my father's
darkly clothed form would be drawn up, and his strongly beautiful face
lifted ominously.
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