It seems veritably an apparition from another and lovelier world, to
which it summons us to go with it. That is what we mean when we say that
Love and Death are one; for Death, to the thought of Love, is but one of
the gates to that other world, a gate to which we instinctively feel
Love has the key. That surely is the meaning of the old fairy-stories of
men who have come upon the white woman in the woodland, and followed
her, never to be seen again of their fellows, or of those who, like
Hylas, have met the water-nymph by the lilied spring, and sunk with her
down into the crystal deeps. The strange earth on which we live is just
such a place of enchantment, neither more nor less, and some of us have
met that fair face, with a strange suddenness of joy and fear, and
followed and followed it on till it vanished beyond the limits of the
world. But our failure was that we did not follow that last white
beckoning of the hand--

And I awoke and found me here
On the cold hill's side.




VIII

THE MANY FACES--THE ONE DREAM


Among the many advantages of being very young is one's absolute
certainty that there is only one type of beautiful girl in the world.
That type we make a religion. We are its pugnacious champions, and the
idea of our falling in love with any other is too preposterous even for