"Do you not find it very
stiff and formal?"
"Stately and precise, I should rather say."
"I do not mean I can help liking it--in a way."
"Who could help liking it that took his feeling from the garden
itself, not from what people said about it!"
"You cannot say it is like nature!"
"Yes; it is very like human nature. Man ought to learn of nature,
but not to imitate nature. His work is, through the forms that
Nature gives him, to express the idea or feeling that is in him.
That is far more likely to produce things in harmony with nature,
than the attempt to imitate nature upon the small human scale."
"You are too much of a philosopher for me!" said Miss Graeme. "I
daresay you are quite right, but I have never read anything about
art, and cannot follow you."
"You have probably read as much as I have. I am only talking out of
what necessity, the necessity for understanding things, has made me
think. One must get things brought together in one's thoughts, if
only to be able to go on thinking."
This too was beyond Miss Graeme. The silence again fell, and Donal
let it lie, waiting for her to break it this time.
CHAPTER XXII.
A TALK ABOUT GHOSTS.
But again he was the first.
They had turned and gone a good way down the long garden, and had
again turned towards the house.
"This place makes me feel as I never felt before," he said.
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