And from above him the stars looked down like a billion tiny fires
kindled by loving hands to light his way--the stars that had given him
music, peace, since he could remember, and that had taught him more of
the silent power of God than the lips of man could ever tell. From
this time forth Jan Thoreau knew that these things would be his life,
his god. A thousand times in fanciful play he had given life and form
to the star-shadows about him, to the shadows of the tall spruce, the
twisted shrub, the rocks and even the mountains. And now it was no
longer play. With each hour that passed this night, and with each day
and night that followed, they became more real to him, and his fires
in the black gloom painted him pictures as they had never painted them
before, and the trees and the rocks and the twisted shrub comforted
him more and more in his loneliness, and gave to him the presence of
life in their movement, in the coming and going of their shadow-forms.
Everywhere they were the same old friends, unvarying and changeless.
The spruce-shadow of to-night, nodding to him in its silent way, was
the same that had nodded to him last night--a hundred nights ago; the
stars were the same, the winds whispering to him in the tree-tops were
the same, everything was as it was yesterday--years ago--unchanged,
never leaving him, never growing cold in their devotion.
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