they were, was simply that they had no imagination beyond, but dwelt
happily among the delights which upon earth are represented by sound and
colour and scent and comeliness and comfort. This was a perpetual
surprise to me, because I saw in these fine creatures such a faculty of
delicate perception, that I could not help believing again and again
that their emotions were as deep and varied too; but I found little by
little, that they were all bent, not on loving, and therefore on giving
themselves away to what they loved, but in gathering in perceptions and
sensations, and finding their delight in them; and I realised that what
lies at the root of the artistic nature is its deep and vital
indifference to anything except what can directly give it delight, and
that these souls, for all their amazing subtlety and discrimination, had
very little hold on life at all, except on its outer details and
superficial harmonies; and that they were all very young in experience,
and like shallow waters, easily troubled and easily appeased; and that
therefore they were being dealt with like children, and allowed full
scope for all their little sensitive fancies, until the time should come
for them to go further yet. Of course they were one degree older than
the people who in the world had been really immersed in what may be
called solid interests and serious pursuits--science, politics,
organisation, warfare, commerce--all these spirits were very youthful
indeed, and they were, I suppose, in some very childish nursery of God.
But what first bewildered me was the finding of the earthly proportions
of things so strangely reversed, the serious matters of life so utterly
set aside, and so much made of the things which many people take no sort
of trouble about, as companionships and affections, which are so often
turned into a matter of mere propinquity and circumstance. But of this
I shall have to speak later in its place.

Now it is difficult to describe the time I spent in the land of delight,