mere intellectual sympathy, a sympathy based on books! What did
Miranda know about Ferdinand's 'views' on this or that subject? Love
is something independent of 'views.' It is an attraction which has
always been held to be inexplicable, but whatever it may be it is not
'views.' She was becoming a little weary, she thought, of what was
called 'culture.' These creatures whom we know through Shakespeare
and Goethe are ghostly. What have we to do with them? It is idle
work to read or even to talk fine things about them. It ends in
nothing. What we really have to go through and that which goes
through it are interesting, but not circumstances and character
impossible to us. When Frank spoke of his business, which he
understood, he was wise, and some observations which he made the
other day, on the management of his workpeople, would have been
thought original if they had been printed. The true artist knows
that his hero must be a character shaping events and shaped by them,
and not a babbler about literature. Frank, also, was so susceptible.
He liked to hear her read to him, and her enthusiasm would soon be
his. Moreover, how gifted he was, unconsciously, with all that makes
a man admirable, with courage, with perfect unselfishness! How
handsome he was, and then his passion for her! She had read
something of passion, but she never knew till now what the white
intensity of its flame in a man could be. She was committed, too,
happily committed; it was an engagement.

Thus, whenever doubt obtruded itself, she poured a self-raised tide
over it and concealed it. Alas! it could not be washed away; it was
a little sharp rock based beneath the ocean's depths, and when the
water ran low its dark point reappeared. She was more successful,
however, than many women would have been, for, although her interest
in ideas was deep, there was fire in her blood, and Frank's arm