Love stories; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Scotland -- Fiction
In the night that had passed her own feeling had grown, multiplied;
the feelings of the others had changed too, but in a different way.
The glamour which had become for her intensified had for them been
lost in the exactness of perspective. Perhaps it was that Joy’s night
had been different from theirs. To her had come all the evils of
reaction. Now and again with wearing recurrency came the exciting
memories of the day; but always with that kaleidoscopic inconsistency
which is the condition of dreaming. The brains of most people are not
accustomed to self-analysis, else we should perhaps more widely
understand that this very inconsistency is mere reproduction. Whilst
we think we do not think that we are thinking, and memory does not
adjust our thoughts to comparison. But, all the time, our thoughts are
really errant; reflections of the night, which seem to be
exaggerations or caricatures, are but just surveys taken from an
altitude which is not our own. In the day time thought is too often
initiated by carnal or material considerations. Selfishness, and need,
and ambition, and anxiety are bases on which thought is built in
working and waking hours. But in the dark and freedom of the night the
mind borrows the wings of the soul and soars away from the body which
is held down by all its weighty restraints. It is perhaps in such
moments that we realise that passion, however earthly may be its
exciting cause, is in itself an attribute or emanation of the Soul.
Over and over again did Joy live through the mad moments of that ride
towards death. Over and over again did that heroic figure sweep up
beside her out of the great unknown. She began to understand now
whence came her calmness and quickness of apprehension as she realised
his presence--the presence of a man who dominated her--even whose
horse in the easiness of its calm intention outstripped the wildness
of her own maddened steed. Here again the abstract mind was working
truly; the horse had its own proper place in her memories of the
heroic deed. Over and over again did that strong hand and arm seize
her; and over and over again did her body sway to him and yield itself
to the clasp, so that at his command it went to him as though of its
own volition. And then, over and over again, came the remembrance of
the poor mad mare disappearing over the edge; of the sickening crash
from below and the wild scream of agony; of the confused rush and
whirl; of the crowding in of people; of the vista of moving carriages
and crowds down the curve of the road. And then all kept fading away
into a blind half consciousness of the strong arm supporting her and
her wearied head resting on his shoulder. …
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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