Adela Cathcart, Volume 3 by George MacDonald
page 119 of 207 (57%)
page 119 of 207 (57%)
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that springs again after it is buried; but unfortunately the only result
we know of is a vampire.' "Wolkenlicht looked up, and saw a shudder pass through the frame, and over the pale thin face of the painter. This he could not account for. But Teufelsbuerst could have explained it, for there were strange whispers abroad, and they had reached his ear; and his philosophy was not quite enough for them. But the laugh with which Lilith met this frightful attempt at wit, grated dreadfully on Wolkenlicht's feeling. With her, too, however, a reaction seemed to follow. For, turning round a moment after, and looking at the picture on which her father was working, the tears rose in her eyes, and she said: 'Oh! father, how like my mother you have made me this time!' 'Child!' retorted the painter with a cold fierceness, 'you have no mother. That which is gone out is gone out. Put no name in my hearing on that which is not. Where no substance is, how can there be a name?' "Lilith rose and left the room. Wolkenlicht now understood that Lilith was a frozen bud, and could not blossom into a rose. But pure love lives by faith. It loves the vaguely beheld and unrealized ideal. It dares believe that the loved is not all that she ever seemed. It is in virtue of this that love loves on. And it was in virtue of this, that Wolkenlicht loved Lilith yet more after he discovered what a grave of misery her unbelief was digging for her within her own soul. For her sake he would bear anything--bear even with calmness the torments of his own love; he would stay on, hoping and hoping.--The text, that we know not what a day may bring forth, is just as true of good things as of evil things; and out of Time's womb the facts must come. "But with the birth of this resolution to endure, his suffering abated; |
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