In its place loomed up another that held the beauty
of the Stars. How little, when announcing it to Minks weeks and weeks
ago, had he dreamed the form it was to take!
And so, wrapped in this glory of the stars, he dreamed on in his
corner, fashioning this marvellous interpretation of a woman he had
never seen before, and never spoken with. It was all so different to
ordinary falling in love at sight, that the phrase never once occurred
to him. It was consummated in a moment--out there, beside the fountain
when he saw her first, shadowy, with brilliant, peering eyes. It
seemed perfect instantly, a recovery of something he had always known.
And who shall challenge the accuracy of his vision, or call its sudden
maturity impossible? For where one sees the surface only, another sees
the potentialities below. To believe in these is to summon them into
activity, just as to think the best of a person ever brings out that
best. Are we not all potential splendours?
Swiftly, in a second, he reviewed the shining sentences that revealed
her to him: The 'autumn flowers'--she lived, then, in the Present,
without that waste of energy which is regret! In 'a little shell' lay
the pattern of all life,--she saw the universe in herself and lived,
thus, in the Whole! To be 'out' meant forgetting self; and life's
climax is at every minute of the day--she understood, that is, the
growth of the soul, due to acceptance of what every minute brings,
however practical, dull, uninteresting.
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