The sight
of those ancient columns quickened a new soul within me; or should I
say a soul that had been overlaid began to emerge? The dead are never
wholly dead; their ideas live in us. I am sure that in England I never
appreciated you as intensely as I do here. Doris, I have learned to
appreciate you like a work of art. It is the spirit of antiquity that
has taken hold of me, that has risen out of the earth and claimed me.
That hat I would put away----"
"Don't you like my hat?"
"Yes, I like it, but I am thinking of the Doris that lived two
thousand years ago; she did not wear a hat. In imagination I see the
nymph that is in you, though I may never see her with mortal eyes."
"Why should you not see her, dear?"
"I have begun to despair. All these boarding-houses and their
inhabitants jar the spirit that this landscape has kindled within me.
I want to go away with you where I may love you. I am afraid what I am
saying may seem exaggerated, but it is quite true that you remind me
of antiquity, and in a way that I cannot explain though it is quite
clear to me."
"But you do possess me, dear?"
"No, Doris, not as I wish. This journey will be a bitter memory that
will endure for ever; we must think not only of the day that we live,
but of the days in front of us; we must store our memories as the
squirrel stores nuts, we must have a winter hoard.
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