IN AN OLD GARDEN 219 



continue long in that mind. In a lively manner, she 

 began speaking of some trivial thing ; but after a 

 very few moments all interest in the subject evapor- 

 ated, and she sat humming some idle air, tapping 

 the turf with her fantastic shoe. Presently she picked 

 up one of my books, opened it at random, and read a 

 line or two, her vermilion under-lip curling slightly ; 

 then threw it down again, and glanced at me out 

 of the corners of her eyes ; then hummed again, 

 and finally became silent, and sat bending forward 

 a little, her dark lustrous eyes gating with strange 

 intentness through the slight screen of foliage into 

 the vacant space beyond. What to see t The poet 

 has omitted to tell us to what the maiden's fancy 

 lightly turns in spring. Doubtless it turns to thoughts 

 of something real. Life is real ; so is passion the 

 quickening of the blood, the wild pulsation. But the 

 pleasures and pains of the printed book are not 

 real, and are to reality like Japanese flowers made of 

 coloured bits of tissue paper to the living fragrant 

 flowers that bloom to-day and perish to-morrow; 

 they are a simulacrum, a mockery, and present 

 to us a pale phantasmagoric world, peopled with 

 bloodless men and women that chatter meaningless 

 things and laugh without joy. The feeling of un- 

 reality affects us all at times, but in very different 

 degrees. And perhaps I was too long a doer, herding 

 too much with narrow foreheads, drinking too 



