Far away
the sea was lapping gently and monotonously on the bar.
The wind of evening in the poplars sounded like some
sad, weird, old rune--some broken dream of old
memories. A slender shapely young aspen rose up before
them against the fine maize and emerald and paling rose
of the western sky, which brought out every leaf and
twig in dark, tremulous, elfin loveliness.
"Isn't that beautiful?" said Owen, pointing to it with
the air of a man who puts a certain conversation behind
him.
"It's so beautiful that it hurts me," said Anne
softly. "Perfect things like that always did hurt
me--I remember I called it `the queer ache' when I was
a child. What is the reason that pain like this seems
inseparable from perfection? Is it the pain of
finality--when we realise that there can be nothing
beyond but retrogression?"
"Perhaps," said Owen dreamily, "it is the prisoned
infinite in us calling out to its kindred infinite as
expressed in that visible perfection."
"You seem to have a cold in the head. Better rub some
tallow on your nose when you go to bed," said Miss
Cornelia, who had come in through the little gate
between the firs in time to catch Owen's last remark.
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