You would think that he would have forgotten what the sea-captain
of China told him about Golden Bells, what with work and sport and
other women near him. You would think that would drop out of his
memory like an old rime. But it stuck there, as an old rime sometimes
sticks, and by dint of thinking he had her fast now in his mind -- so
fast, so clear, so full of life, that she might be some one he had
seen an hour ago or was going to see an hour from now. He would
think of the now merry, now sad eyes of her, and the soft, sweet
voice of her by reason of which they called her Golden Bells, and
the dusky little face, and the hair like black silk, and the splotch
of the red flower in it. She was as distinct to him as the five
fingers on his hand. It wasn't only she was clear in his mind's eye,
but she was inside of him, closer than his heart. She was there when
the sun rose, so he would be saying, "It's a grand day is in it surely,
Golden Bells." She was there in the dim counting house and he going
over in the great intricate ledgers the clerks do be posting carefully
with quills of the gray goose, so that he would be saying: "I wonder
where this is and that is. Sure I had my finger on it only a moment
ago, Golden Bells." And when the dusk was falling, and the bats came
out, and the quiet of Christ was over everything, and the swallows
flew low on the great canals, she would be beside him, and never a
word would he say to her, so near to him would she be.

And she wrought strangeness between him and the women he knew,
the great grave lady with the large, pale mouth, her that was of
his mind, and the little black cloak-maker with the eager, red mouth,
her that was closer than mind or heart to him. So that the first
found fault with his poetry.