ch0f

ch0a: "The features of infancy are not commonly reproduced in the adolescent portrait"
ch0b: "In spite, however, of continued shocks, which drove him from breathless flights"
ch0c: "In their relations among themselves and towards their superiors they displayed"
ch0d: "One night in early spring, standing at the foot of the staircase in the library"
ch0e: "Isolation, he had once written, is the first principle of artistic economy"
ch0f: "His soul was soaring in an air beyond the world and the body he knew was purified"
ch0g: "In calmer mood the critic in him could not but remark a strange prelude"



[last]



His soul was soaring in an air beyond the world and the body he knew was purified in a breath and delivered of incertitude and made radiant and commingled with the element of the spirit.



Dearest of mortals! In spite of tributary verses and of the comedy of meetings here and in the foolish society of sleep the fountain of being (it seemed) had been interfused.



Years before, in boyhood, the energy of sin opening a world before him he had been made aware of thee.



The yellow gaslamps arising in his troubled vision against an autumnal sky, gleaming mysteriously there before that violet altar-- the groups gathered at the doorways arranged as for some rite-- the glimpses of revel and fantasmal mirth-- the vague face of some welcomer seeming to awaken from a slumber of centuries under his gaze-- the blind confusion (iniquity! iniquity!) suddenly overtaking him-- in all the ardent adventure of lust didst thou not even then communicate? 


Beneficent one! (the shrewdness of love was in the title) thou camest timely, as a witch to the agony of self devourer, an envoy from the fair courts of life.



How could he thank thee for that enrichment of soul by thee consummated? Mastery of art had been achieved in irony; asceticism of intellect had been a mood of indignant pride: but who had revealed him to himself but thou alone? 


In ways of tenderness, simple, intuitive tenderness, thy love had made to arise in him the central torrents of life.



Thou hadst put thine arms about him and, intimately prisoned as thou hadst been, in the soft stir of thy bosom, the raptures of silence, the murmured words, thy heart had spoken to his heart.



Thy disposition could refine and direct his passion holding more beauty at the cunningest angle.



Thou wert sacramental imprinting thine indelible mark, of very visible grace.



A litany must honour thee: Lady of Apple Trees, Kind Wisdom, Sweet Flower of Dusk.



In another phase it had been not uncommon to devise dinners in white and purple upon the actuality of stirabout but here, surely, is sturdy or delicate food to hand; no need for devising.



His way (abrupt creature!) lies out now to the measurable world and the broad expanses of activity.



The blood hurries to a galop in his veins; his nerves accumulate an electric force; he is footed with flame.



A kiss: and they leap together, indivisible, upwards, radiant lips and eyes, their bodies sounding with the triumph of harps! Again, beloved! Again, thou bride! Again, ere life is ours!





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