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Sacred and Profane Love by Arnold Bennett
page 16 of 243 (06%)
under the melody of the song, and the reply of the song was a proud cry,
a haughty contempt of these furtive warnings, and a sudden winged leap
into the empyrean towards the Eternal Spirit. And then the melody was
lost in a depth, and the song became turgid and wild and wilder,
hysteric, irresolute, frantically groping, until at last it found its
peace and its salvation. And the treasure was veiled in a mist of
arpeggios, but one by one these were torn away, and there was a hush, a
pause, and a preparation; and the soul of man broke into a new song of
what it had found on earth--the magic of the tenderness of love--an air
so caressing and so sweet, so calmly happy and so mournfully sane, so
bereft of illusions and so naïve, that it seemed to reveal in a few
miraculous phrases the secret intentions of God. It was too beautiful; it
told me too much about myself; it vibrated my nerves to such an
unbearable spasm of pleasure that I might have died had I not willed to
live.... It gave place momentarily to the song of the question and the
search, but only to return, and to return again, with a more thrilling
and glorious assurance. It was drowned in doubt, but it emerged
triumphantly, covered with noble and delicious ornaments, and swimming
strongly on mysterious waves. And finally, with speed and with fire, it
was transformed and caught up into the last ecstasy, the ultimate
passion. The soul swept madly between earth and heaven, fell, rose; and
there was a dreadful halt. Then a loud blast, a distortion of the magic,
an upward rush, another and a louder blast, and a thunderous fall,
followed by two massive and terrifying chords....

Diaz was standing up and bowing to his public. What did they understand?
Did they understand anything? I cannot tell. But I know that they felt.
A shudder of feeling had gone through the hall. It was in vain that
people tried to emancipate themselves from the spell by the violence of
their applause. They could not. We were all together under the
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