Upon Damaris,
however, perambulation of those paths palled too soon. Her intellect and
heart alike demanded wider fields of drama, of religion and of science,
above all wider and less conventional converse with average human nature,
than this triumvirate of Victorian sibyls was willing or capable to
supply. It is undeniable that, although words and phrases, whole episodes
indeed, were obscure even unintelligible to her, she found the memoirs of
Benvenuto Cellini and Saint Simon more interesting than the "Lives of the
Queens of England; Vathek," more to her taste than "Amy Herbert"; and,
if the truth must be told, "The Decameron," and "Tristram Shandy" more
satisfying to her imagination than "The Heir of Redcliffe" or "The Daisy
Chain." To Damaris it seemed, just now, that a book the meaning of which
was quite clear to her and could be grasped at sight, hardly repaid the
trouble of reading, since it afforded no sense of adventure, no
excitement of challenge or of pursuit, no mirage of wonder, no delightful
provocation of matters outside her experience and not understood.
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