seemed to sing, the virginal beauty of the mother and her children.
But, in his case, what was thus visible constituted a moral [107] or
spiritual influence, of a somewhat exigent and controlling character,
added anew to life, a new element therein, with which, consistently
with his own chosen maxim, he must make terms.

The thirst for every kind of experience, encouraged by a philosophy
which taught that nothing was intrinsically great or small, good or
evil, had ever been at strife in him with a hieratic refinement, in
which the boy-priest survived, prompting always the selection of what
was perfect of its kind, with subsequent loyal adherence of his soul
thereto. This had carried him along in a continuous communion with
ideals, certainly realised in part, either in the conditions of his
own being, or in the actual company about him, above all, in
Cornelius. Surely, in this strange new society he had touched upon
for the first time to-day--in this strange family, like "a garden
enclosed"--was the fulfilment of all the preferences, the judgments,
of that half-understood friend, which of late years had been his
protection so often amid the perplexities of life. Here, it might
be, was, if not the cure, yet the solace or anodyne of his great
sorrows--of that constitutional sorrowfulness, not peculiar to
himself perhaps, but which had made his life certainly like one long
"disease of the spirit." Merciful intention made itself known
remedially here, in the mere contact of the air, like a soft touch
upon aching [108] flesh. On the other hand, he was aware that new
responsibilities also might be awakened--new and untried
responsibilities--a demand for something from him in return. Might
this new vision, like the malignant beauty of pagan Medusa, be
exclusive of any admiring gaze upon anything but itself? At least he
suspected that, after the beholding of it, he could never again be