Jacques-Louis David Napoleon crossing the Alps painting

Jacques-Louis David Napoleon crossing the Alps paintingJoaquin Sorolla y Bastida Children on the Beach paintingThomas Gainsborough The Morning Walk painting
tried to remember when he had last walked in the open night at such an hour. He wasn’t sure he even ... God, years. Seven—about sixteen, when he still thought he was Shelley, watching the river. Leaning on the bridge rail and literally praying with gratitude for being alive.
Instinctively, he turned his head so that his parents could not see his face.
I don’t want to see it, either, he thought.
By that time, Jay was trying to teach himself law.
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, the silent stars go by.
The words had always touched him; every year they still brought back Christmas to him, for some reason, as nothing else could. Now they seemed to him as beautiful as any poetry he had ever known.
He said them over to himself very slowly and calmly: just a statement.
They do indeed, he thought, looking up. They do indeed. And God, how tired they look!
It’s the time of night.