Her very
passivity was her strength, the secret of her magnetism. In her, he felt
some of that mysterious sentiency of nature, which, even in yielding to
man's fevers, lies apart with a faint smile--the uncapturable smile of
the woods and fields by day or night, that makes one ache with longing.
He felt in her some of the unfathomable, soft, vibrating indifference of
the flowers and trees and streams, of the rocks, of birdsongs, and the
eternal hum, under sunshine or star-shine. Her dark, half-smiling eyes
enticed him, inspired an unquenchable thirst. And his was one of those
natures which, encountering spiritual difficulty, at once jib off, seek
anodynes, try to bandage wounded egoism with excess--a spoiled child,
with the desperations and the inherent pathos, the something repulsive
and the something lovable that belong to all such. Having wished for
this moon, and got her, he now did not know what to do with her, kept
taking great bites at her, with a feeling all the time of getting
further and further away. At moments, he desired revenge for his failure
to get near her spiritually, and was ready to commit follies of all
kinds. He was only kept in control at all by his work. For he did
work hard; though, even there, something was lacking. He had all
the qualities of making good, except the moral backbone holding
them together, which alone could give him his rightful--as he
thought--pre-eminence.
Pages:
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134