' AMARYLLIS AT THE FAIR ' 271 



the approach, every letter that came, was like the gnawing 

 and gnashing of savage teeth 



' Iden could plant the potatoes and gossip at the stile, 

 and put the letters unopened on the mantelshelf — a pile 

 of bills over his head where he slept calmly after dinner. 

 Iden could plant potatoes, and cut trusses of hay, and go 

 through his work to appearance unmoved. 



' Amaryllis could not draw — she could not do it ; her 

 imagination refused to see the idea ; the more she con- 

 centrated her mind, the louder she heard the ceaseless 

 grinding and gnashing of teeth. 



' Potatoes can be planted and nails can be hammered, 

 bill-hooks can be wielded and faggots chopped, no matter 

 what the inward care. The ploughman is deeply in debt, 

 poor fellow, but he can, and does, follow the plough, and 

 finds, perhaps, some solace in the dull monotony of his 

 labour. Clods cannot feel. A sensitive mind and vivid 

 imagination — a delicately-balanced organization, that 

 almost lives on its ideas as veritable food — cannot do 

 like this. The poet, the artist, the author, the thinker, 

 cannot follow their plough ; their work depends on a 

 serene mind. 



' But experience proves that they do do their work under 

 such circumstances. They do ; how greatly then they 

 must be tortured, or for what a length of time they must 

 have suffered to become benumbed. 



' Amaryllis was young, and all her feelings unchecked 

 of Time. She could not sketch — that was a thing of 

 useless paper and pencil ; what was wanted was money. 

 She could not read, that was not real ; what was wanted 

 was solid coin. 



' So the portfolio was thrust aside, neglected and covered 

 with dust, but she came every day to her flowers in the 

 window-niche. . . . 



' She loved beauty for its own sake — she loved the sun- 

 light, the grass and trees, the gleaming water, the colours 

 of the fields and of the sky. To listen to the running 

 water was to her a dear delight, to the wind in the high 



