FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41  
42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   >>   >|  
selfish as lovers are, Rosamund and Dion took everything wonderful and beautiful as their possession. The yellow-green pines near the convent of Daphni threw patches of shade on the warm earth because they wanted to rest there; the kingfisher rose in low and arrow-like flight from the banks of Khephissus to make a sweet diversion for them; they longed for brilliance, and the lagoons of Salamis were dyed with a wonder of emerald; they asked for twilight, and the deep and deserted glades of Academe gave it them in full measure. All these possessions, and many others, they enjoyed almost as children enjoy a meadow full of flowers when they have climbed over the gate that bars it from the high road. But the Acropolis was the stronghold of their joy. Only when their feet pressed its silvery grasses, and trod its warm marble pavements, did they hold the world within their grasp. For some days after their arrival in Greece they almost lived among the ruins. The long-coated guardians smiled at them, at first with a sort of faint amusement, at last with a friendly pleasure. And they smiled at themselves. Each evening they said, "To-morrow we will do this--or that," and each morning they said nothing, just looked at each other after breakfast, read in each other's eyes the repetition of desire, and set out on the dear dusty road with which they were already so familiar. Had there ever before been a honeymoon bounded by the precipices of the Acropolis? They sometimes discussed that important question, and always decided against the impertinent possibility. "What we are doing has never been done before." Dion went further than this, to "What I am feeling has never been felt before." His youth asserted itself in silent, determined statements which seemed to him to ring with authentic truth. It was a far cry from the downs of Chilton to the summit of the Acropolis. Dion remembered the crowd assembled to hear "Elijah"; he felt the ugly heat, the press of humanity. And all that was but the prelude to this! Even the voice crying "Woe unto them!" had been the prelude to the wonderful silence of Greece. He felt marvelously changed. And Rosamund often seemed to him changed, too, because she was his own. That wonderful fact gave her new values, spread about her new mysteries. And some of these mysteries Dion did not attempt to fathom at first. Perhaps he felt that some silences of love are like certain ceremony with a friend--a mark
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   17   18   19   20   21   22   23   24   25   26   27   28   29   30   31   32   33   34   35   36   37   38   39   40   41  
42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62   63   64   65   66   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Acropolis

 

wonderful

 

Rosamund

 

smiled

 
prelude
 

mysteries

 

changed

 

Greece

 

feeling

 

precipices


familiar

 

honeymoon

 

desire

 
bounded
 
decided
 
impertinent
 

question

 

important

 

discussed

 

possibility


summit

 

marvelously

 

silence

 
values
 

ceremony

 

friend

 
silences
 
Perhaps
 

spread

 
attempt

fathom
 

crying

 
Chilton
 

authentic

 
silent
 

determined

 

statements

 
repetition
 

remembered

 

humanity


assembled

 
Elijah
 

asserted

 

emerald

 
twilight
 

Salamis

 

lagoons

 

diversion

 
longed
 

brilliance