Of love, she had thought more in this last week or
two than in all her years gone by. Assuredly, she knew it not, this
glory of the poets. Yet she could inspire it in others; at all
events, in one, whose rhythmic utterance of the passion ever and
again came back to her mind.
A temptation had assailed her (but she resisted it) to repeat those
verses of Piers Otway to her friend. And in thinking of them, she
half reproached herself for the total silence she had preserved
towards their author. Perhaps he was uncertain whether the verses
had ever reached her. It seemed unkind. There would have been no
harm in letting him know that she had read the lines, and--as
poetry--liked them.
Was her temper prosaic? It would at any time have surprised her to
be told so. Owing to her father's influence, she had given much time
to scientific studies, but she knew herself by no means defective in
appreciation of art and literature. By whatever accident, the
friends of her earlier years had been notable rather for good sense
and good feeling than for aesthetic fervour; the one exception, her
cousin Olga, had rather turned her from thoughts about the
beautiful, for Olga seemed emotional in excess, and was not without
taint of affectation. In Helen Borisoff she knew for the first time
a woman who cared supremely for music, poetry, pictures, and who
combined with this a vigorous practical intelligence.
Pages:
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305