“But the air is stimulating, and, as you know, I am something of an optimist—in short, I particularly desire to find out what it is that gives these little grassy mountains that peculiar blue tinge, and the rocks simply shout for examination. Not that I am an expert geologist, of course. Still, one can record some observations. And I would add that I think we shall be at peace here. There is an air of happy serenity that lies on the valley.” “And you, Terence?” Terence, in the attitude of Rabindranath Tagore in meditation, raised his large, grey, poetic eyes. “I confess to a certain disappointment. Dragons are somewhat outside my habit of dreaming, and the Chinese gods are not, on the whole, attractive. I find something bland and pawnbroker-like in their faces——” “That,” put in Blackwood, “is the everlasting calm of those who have learnt to despise the world.” “I find it unheroic and fatuous. Moreover, I dislike the empty and unmeaning classicism of this Gentleman’s Park. And these rhododendrons and magnolias—they are so consciously ornamental and Chinese and matter-of-fact.” “Still,” observed Sombrewater, “you would not wish to depart just yet?” “So long as I am allowed to remain in my tower and commune with the myriad quivering spirits of the bamboo-forest.” “By all means—if we may eat a few from time to time. I take it, then, that it’s settled. We remain.” “I shall remain,” observed Lychnis, “till all’s blue. One need not starve, or stay out in the wet, for there are houses and servants and food everywhere. And I would like to say,” she added, with a certain diffidence, “that the matter-of-factness is only apparent. It seems to me, Terence, that it hides something—what shall I say?—almost unbearably passionate, all this classical restraint. Yes, the Pavilion and the little bridges and the landscape and everything else. These two paintings, for instance—the Flower-Spray. That empty, palpitating background. It is more than an evening sky. The flowers—don’t you think so, daddy?”—she appealed to her father to support her declaration of faith—“the flowers ... oh, they are more than lovely! There is something moves in them, behind them. Some great artist did that, with the calmness of a poet-painter who has feared beauty and conquered his fear. Then”—she looked round and gathered courage from their attentiveness—“the Geese. Not very romantic, Terence. But the soul of Geese is there, dear plump things! What is it Quentin would say in philosophy? Divested of all accident of appearance. They are whatever it is that is Goose at the perfect moment of evolution. The life of the universe is seen through the Geese in that picture. The painter has not hindered it with some sentimental pre-occupation of his own. Romanticism looks silly beside that sort of reality. I—I did not mean to have said so much. But it said itself. It was strange—those two pictures hypnotized me. Something that is not quite life—more than