'THE STORY OF MY HEART' 195 



with which his throat and tongue and whole body have 

 often been ' parched and feverish dry.' The hps and 

 hair of Cytherea, * Juno's wide back and mesial groove,' 

 slake the same thirst. These were they, he says of 

 the Greek men and women, ' who would have stayed 

 with me under the shadow of the oaks while the black- 

 birds fluted and the south air swung the cowslips. . . . 

 These had thirsted of sun, and earth, and sea, and sky. 

 Their shape spoke [this thirst and desire like mine.'* 

 It would, he says, have seemed natural to find ' butter- 

 flies fluttering among the statues.' But the books, the 

 human books, away from the sunlight, gave no thought 

 as the gleamy spring water did. 



Turning again to men, the roaring press of them 

 opposite the Royal Exchange in London, he sees that 

 they will wither away with no result. But he does not 

 despair, though he believes that there is no ' theory, 

 philosophy, or creed ' to guide and shape ' this million- 

 handed labour to an end and outcome that will leave 

 more sunshine and more flowers to those who must suc- 

 ceed.' He is forced to express the desirable by the 

 images of sunshine and flowers. First, he says, we must 

 efface the learning of the past, and ' go straight to the 

 sun.' Though at last his prayer became ' less solely 

 associated with these things,' it is always the sun, the 

 hills, the wind, the flowers, the sea — the sea whose moving 

 waters he esteems as religiously as Keats. It is house- 

 life that he personally must escape from ' back to the 

 sun '; away from the preaching of house-life : ' Remain ; 

 be content ; go round and round in one barren path, a 

 little money, a little food and sleep, some ancient fables, 

 old age, and death.' As he is dissatisfied with what men 

 have done, so is he with thought itself and with experi- 

 ence. Those were his topmost moments when he prayed 

 without words, and ' an ecstasy of soul accompanied 

 the delicate excitement of the senses '; this was the 

 chaos that gave birth to a dancing star. Thought must 



* The Story of My Heart. 



13—2 



