.

With every season I returned. And with every season she greeted my
coming with a more generous and a more vivacious air. I think the years
slipped off and did not add themselves upon her mind: the common doom
of mortality escaped her until, perhaps, its sign was imposed upon her
hair--for this at last was touched all through with that appearance or
gleam which might be morning or which might be snow.

She was able to conjure all evil. Those desperate enemies of mankind
which lie in siege of us all around grew feeble and were silent when she
came. Nor has any other force than hers dared to enter the rooms where
she had lived: it is her influence alone which inhabits them to-day.
There is a vessel of copper, enamelled in green and gilded, which she
gave with her own hands to a friend overseas. I have twice touched it in
an evil hour.

Strength, sustenance, and a sacramental justice are permanent in such
lives, and such lives also attain before their close to so general a
survey of the world that their appreciations are at once accurate and
universal.

On this account she did not fail in any human conversation, nor was she
ever for a moment less than herself; but always and throughout her moods
her laughter was unexpected and full, her fear natural, her indignation
glorious.

Above all, her charity extended like a breeze: it enveloped everything
she knew. The sense of destiny faded from me as the warmth of that
charity fell upon my soul; the foreknowledge of death retreated, as did
every other unworthy panic.

She drew the objects of her friendship into something new; they breathed
an air from another country, so that those whom she deigned to regard
were, compared with other men, like the living compared with the dead;
or, better still, they were like men awake while the rest were tortured
by dreams and haunted of the unreal. Indeed, she had a word given to her
which saved all the souls of her acquaintance.

It is not true that influence of this sort decays or passes into vaguer
and vaguer depths of memory. It does not dissipate. It is not dissolved.
It does not only spread and broaden: it also increases with the passage
of time. The musicians bequeath their spirit, notably those who have
loved delightful themes and easy melodies. The poets are read for ever;
but those who resemble her do more, for they grow out upon the
centuries--they themselves and not their arts continue. There is stuff
in their legend. Th