Of old time the shadow of the gnomon glided over marble; sometimes they built great structures to show the passage of the shadow more distinctly—observatories of shadow. Not only on this round horizontal disk of greenish metal, not only on those ancient marble slabs, but over the whole earth the shadow advances, for the earth is the gnomon of night. The sunlight and the night, year by year, century by century, cycle by cycle; how long is it? Can anyone say? So long has love, too, endured, passing on and handed down from heart to heart.
The long Roll of Love reaching back into the profoundest abyss of Time, upon it fresh names are written day by day.
Felise’s love was pure indeed; yet what is there that the purest love is not capable of for the one to whom the soul is devoted?
Self-immolation, self-sacrifice, death—is there anything love refuses?
Still the shadow slips on the green rust of the dial. Let even life pass from us if only we can have love.
Felise saw the beauty of the earth, and with that beauty she loved; the cool green flags in the meadow-brook; the reeds which moved forward and advanced as if about to step forth from the water as they swayed; the deep blue of the sky; the ruddy gold of the wheat under the pale yellow haze.
The rolling boom of the thunder came through the fields of light, the earth glowed warmer.
That the wonderful mechanism of the mind, the heart, of life, should be capable of emotion so divine, and yet should so soon perish—is it not unutterably cruel?
So many, and so many, who have loved in the long passage of time, but are gone as the shadow goes from the dial when the sun sinks. Are, then, our noblest feelings to fade and become void?
Upon the sundial there were curious graven circles and interwoven angles, remnants of the ancient lore which saw fate in the stars and read things above nature in nature. Symbols and signs are still needed, for the earth and life are still mysterious; they cannot be written, they require the inarticulate sign of the magician.
Let us not outlive love in our days, and come to look back with sorrow on those times.
You have seen the ships upon the sea; they sail hither and thither thousands of miles. Do they find aught equal to love? Can they bring back precious gems to rival it from the rich south?
The reapers have been in the corn these thousand years, the miners in the earth, the toilers in the city; in all the labour and long-suffering is there anything like unto love? Any reward or profit in the ships, the mines, the warehouses?
What are the institutions of man, the tawdry state, the false law, the subsidized superstition, and poor morality, that pale shadow of truth—what are these by love?
Could but love stay, could but love have its will, and no more would be needed for eternity.
Overcome with her beauty, he was at her feet as at the feet of an immortal, such as moved among the violets in the early days.
Her dress was transparent to his eyes—the image of the beautiful knees dewy from the bath could never fade. No dress could hide her. He slumbered in worship at her knees.
The reapers laboured cutting at the wheat, and with bowed backs bound up the sheaves; the doves came out from the copse and fed among the stubble. Among the beech-trees there floated the sound of the falling of water on its way to the cool green flags of the brook. Faint rustling of squirrels’ feet, the hum of invisible insects, the flutter of butterflies’ wings, the hum of a humble bee wandering among the fern, the call of the grasshoppers in the grass, the amorous sigh of the breeze, the quick maze of the sunlight dots, the sense of all summer things, the distant thunder deepening with the pressure of its note the voices of the sunlit earth, the fullness of the harvest, the touch of a loving hand.
His head rested upon her left knee—not on her lap, but on her left knee. His weight had been there so long it had compressed a vein, and her limb was growing numb. What of that? if the limb had been dying she would not have moved, she would not have changed her position one iota. She was sitting higher on the bank than he was, so that his head naturally rested there. He remembered the white knee dewy from the water; it was on that he really rested. Her arms like a bower hung over embracing; he looked up, he saw her loving eyes; her lips descended upon his.
XVII
The happiest lady in the land is the lady who can sing like the adorable Patti. The construction of this sentence is not harmonious, and yet perhaps it will convey the meaning better than if it had been studied. She who can sing like Patti.
Upon the sounds of her sweet throat the multitude hang entranced, and for the song they half worship the singer. To be thus courted, thus admired, must indeed be a pleasure, because it is for something personal and genuine, not for any adventitious advantage of position, not because of a crown or wealth, simply for one’s self. She may be excused—nay, she may be praised for pride and vanity in so glorious a possession.
Such joy—such supreme triumph—is only for woman; for man there is no similar altitude, he cannot climb so high. It is not for any man to be like this.
For him the nearest approach—many miles asunder—is to be able to write a really good Opera Bouffe. Something that will set the feet of all a-shuffling, the eyes gleaming, the ears tingling, the whole
