He stepped out of the window, drawn as by the enchantment
of one of childhood's dreams, and went wandering down a broad walk,
his foot sinking deep in the velvety grass, and the loveliness of
the dream did not fade. Hollyhocks, gloriously impatient, whose
flowers could not wait to reach the top ere they burst into the
flame of life, making splendid blots of colour along their ascending
stalks, received him like stately dames of faerie, and enticed him,
gently eager for more, down the long walks between rows of
them--deep red and creamy white, primrose and yellow: sure they were
leading him to some wonderful spot, some nest of lovely dreams and
more lovely visions! The walk did lead to a bower of roses--a bed
surrounded with a trellis, on which they climbed and made a huge
bonfire--altar of incense rather, glowing with red and white flame.
It seemed more glorious than his brain could receive. Seeing was
hardly believing, but believing was more than seeing: though nothing
is too good to be true, many things are too good to be grasped.
"Poor misbelieving birds of God," he said to himself, "we hover
about a whole wood of the trees of life, venturing only here and
there a peck, as if their fruit might be poison, and the design of
our creation was our ruin! we shake our wise, owl-feathered heads,
and declare they cannot be the trees of life: that were too good to
be true! Ten times more consistent are they who deny there is a God
at all, than they who believe in a middling kind of God--except
indeed that they place in him a fitting faith!"
The thoughts rose gently in his full heart, as the flowers, one
after the other, stole in at his eyes, looking up from the dark
earth like the spirits of its hidden jewels, which themselves could
not reach the sun, exhaled in longing.
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