' And
so it was, night after night, always varied and unforseen. I have
observed a like sudden extreme change in others, half whose
thought was supernatural, and Laurence Oliphant records some where
or other like observations. I can remember only once finding her
in a mood of reverie; something had happened to damp her spirits,
some attack upon her movement, or upon herself. She spoke of
Balzac, whom she had seen but once, of Alfred de Musset, whom she
had known well enough to dislike for his morbidity, and of George
Sand whom she had known so well that they had dabbled in magic
together of which 'neither knew anything at all' in those days;
and she ran on, as if there was nobody there to overhear her, 'I
used to wonder at and pity the people who sell their souls to the
devil, but now I only pity them. They do it to have somebody on
their sides,' and added to that, after some words I have
forgotten, 'I write, write, write as the Wandering Jew walks,
walks, walks.' Besides the devotees, who came to listen and to
turn every doctrine into a new sanction for the puritanical
convictions of their Victorian childhood, cranks came from half
Europe and from all America, and they came that they might talk.
Pages:
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97