But it would be
hard in any case to say where cultivation of love for the beautiful
should end, and to determine the exact point at which the result ceases
to be intellectual and begins to be sensual.
I have sat and watched Ideala lolling at an open window in the summer.
The house stood on a hill, a river wound through the valley below, and
beyond the river--the land sloped up again, green and dotted with
trees, to a range of low hills, crested with a fringe of wood.
"Do you know what there is beyond those hills?" Ideala asked me once,
abruptly. "_I_ don't know; but I love to believe that the sea is
there, and that the sun is sinking into it now. Sometimes I fancy I
can hear it murmur."
And then followed a long silence. And the scent of mignonette and roses
blew in upon her, and the twilight deepened, and I saw her grow pale
with pleasure when the nightingale began to sing--and then I stole away
and never was missed. She would lie in a long chair for hours like
that, scarcely moving, and never speaking. At first I used to wonder
what she thought about; but afterwards I knew that at such times she
did not think, she only felt.
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