Thus Theophilus was, after all, united for ever to Dorothea on that
same day. She welcomed him with the restful look of the blessed. Like
two doves, separated by the tempest, who have found each other again,
and first fly in a wide circuit round their home, so the united pair
swept hand in hand swiftly, swiftly, and unceasingly around the outmost
circles of Heaven, freed from every weight, yet still themselves. Then
they separated sportively and lost themselves in wide infinity, while
each knew where the other tarried, and what the other thought, and
joined with him in embracing every creature and all existence in sweet
love. Then they sought each other again with waxing desire, which knew
no pain and no impatience. They found each other, and once more eddied
about, or reposed in contemplation of themselves and gazed near and far
into the world of infinitude. But once in blissful forgetfulness they
ventured too near the crystal habitation of the Holy Trinity, and
entered within. There they lost all consciousness, and like twins
beneath a mother's heart they fell on sleep, and no doubt are sleeping
still, unless meantime they have been able to make their way out.
A LEGEND OF THE DANCE
O virgin of Israel: thou shalt again be adorned
with thy tabrets, and shalt go forth in the dances....
Then shall the virgin rejoice in the dance, both
young men and old together.
Jeremiah, xxxi. 4, 13.
According to Saint Gregory, Musa was the dancer among the saints. The
child of good people, she was a bright young lady, a diligent servant
of the Mother of God, and subject only to one weakness, such an
uncontrollable passion for the dance, that when the child was not
praying she was dancing without fail, and that on all imaginable
occasions. Musa danced with her playmates, with children, with the
young men, and even by herself. She danced in her own room and every
other room in the house, in the garden, in the meadows. Even when she
went to the altar, it was to a gracious measure rather than at a walk,
and even on the smooth marble flags before the church-door she did not
scruple to practise a few hasty steps.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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