less than it gives. There is another love, that blots out wisdom, that is
sweet with the sweetness of life and bitter with the bitterness of death,
lasting for an hour; but it is worth having lived a whole life for that
hour. I cannot tell, perhaps the old monks were right when they tried to
root love out; perhaps the poets are right when they try to water it. It
is a blood-red flower, with the colour of sin; but there is always the
scent of a god about it."

Gregory would have made a remark; but she said, without noticing:

"There are as many kinds of loves as there are flowers; everlastings that
never wither; speedwells that wait for the wind to fan them out of life;
blood-red mountain-lilies that pour their voluptuous sweetness out for one
day, and lie in the dust at night. There is no flower has the charm of
all--the speedwell's purity, the everlasting's strength, the mountain-
lily's warmth; but who knows whether there is no love that holds all--
friendship, passion, worship?

"Such a love," she said, in her sweetest voice, "will fall on the surface
of strong, cold, selfish life as the sunlight falls on a torpid winter
world; there, where the trees are bare, and the ground frozen, till it
rings to the step like iron, and the water is solid, and the air is sharp
as a two-edged knife that cuts the unwary.

"But when its sun shines on it, through its whole dead crust a throbbing
yearning wakes: the trees feel him, and every knot and bud swell, aching
to open to him. The brown seeds, who have slept deep under the ground,
feel him, and he gives them strength, till they break through the frozen
earth, and lift two tiny, trembling green hands in love to him. And he
touches the water, till down to its depths it feels him and melts, and it