90 FLORIDA DAYS.

and the portcullis. The coat-of-arms over the
doorway, and the worn pulleys of the drawbridge
on either side, fade into the warm dusk; all the
barbican is wrapped in shadows: yet still the
parapets and the towers for the sentry, hanging
airily upon the four angles of the fort, are
faintly flushed with rose, and the broad coping
is warm beneath the hand.
 It is not so easy to dream here. There is a
detail in contemplation which robs it of its opi-
ate, a detail which never comes to him who,
in the flood of sunshine, leans against a garden-
wall, his eyes fixed on a glittering edge of shell.
In the fort, too much is suggested; one cannot
remember and dream at the same time. Besides,
crumpling the water until it has the sheen of a
web of silk, or stroking it smooth as with an
invisible wing, which leaves a faint glisten in
its gray track, the fresh wind blows the haze
of sleep away.
 The western sky throbs with an impalpable
dust of gold when the sun has set; and the
blue and cloudless day closes like the lid of a
casket of jewels upon the violet rim of sea, and