He had always had wide interests, and, indeed could
still read The Times, but he was liable at any moment to put it down if
he heard a blackbird sing. Upright conduct, property--somehow, they were
tiring; the blackbirds and the sunsets never tired him, only gave him
an uneasy feeling that he could not get enough of them. Staring into the
stilly radiance of the early evening and at the little gold and white
flowers on the lawn, a thought came to him: This weather was like
the music of 'Orfeo,' which he had recently heard at Covent Garden. A
beautiful opera, not like Meyerbeer, nor even quite Mozart, but, in its
way, perhaps even more lovely; something classical and of the Golden Age
about it, chaste and mellow, and the Ravogli 'almost worthy of the old
days'--highest praise he could bestow. The yearning of Orpheus for the
beauty he was losing, for his love going down to Hades, as in life love
and beauty did go--the yearning which sang and throbbed through the
golden music, stirred also in the lingering beauty of the world that
evening. And with the tip of his cork-soled, elastic-sided boot he
involuntarily stirred the ribs of the dog Balthasar, causing the animal
to wake and attack his fleas; for though he was supposed to have none,
nothing could persuade him of the fact.
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