But it was there,
he doubted not, though it hid itself. It was like a dance of fairies
in a forest glade, which a man could half discern through the
screening leaves; but, when he gains the place, he sees nothing but
tall flowers with drooping bells, bushes set with buds, large-leaved
herbs, all with a silent, secret, smiling air, as though they said,
"We have seen, we could tell."

Paul seemed very near this baffling secret at times; in the dewy
silence of mornings, just before the sun comes up, when familiar woods
and trees stand in a sort of musing happiness; at night when the sky
is thickly sown with stars, or when the moon rises in a soft hush and
silvers the sleeping pool; or when the sun goes down in a rich pomp,
trailing a great glow of splendour with him among cloudy islands, all
flushed with fiery red. When the sun withdrew himself thus, flying and
flaring to the west, behind the boughs of leafless trees, what was the
hidden secret presence that stood there as it were finger on lip,
inviting yet denying? Paul knew within himself that if he could but
say or sing this, the world would never forget. But he could not yet.

Then, too, Paul learned the magic of words, the melodious accent of
letters, sometimes so sweet, sometimes so harsh; then the growing
phrase, the word that beckons as it were other words to join it
trippingly; the thought that draws the blood to the brain, and sets
the heart beating swiftly--he learned the words that sound like
far-off bells, or that wake a gentle echo in the spirit, the words
that burn into the heart, and make the hearer ashamed of all that is
hard and low. But he learned, too, that the craftsman in words must
not build up his song word by word, as a man fetches bricks to make a
wall; but that he must see the whole thought clear first, in a kind of
divine flash, so that when he turns for words to write it, he finds
them piled to his hand.

All these things Paul learnt, and day by day he suffered all the sweet
surprises and joys of art. There were days that were not so, when the
strings jangled aimlessly, and seemed to have no soul in them; days
when it appeared that the cloud could not lift, as though light and
music together were dead in the world--but these days were few; and
Paul growing active and strong, caring little what he ate and drank,
tasting no wine, because it fevered him at first, and then left him
ill at ease, knowing no evil or luxurious thoughts, sleeping li