The dumb thrush brooding in her lilac hedge; The wild hawk towering in his proudest flight; A silver fountain splashed o'er mossy ledge; The sunrise flaming on an Alpine height;-- All these I've seen, yet never learned, till now In thy sweet smiling, to accord my vow Austere of truth with beauty's charmed delight. XXXII JESSICA TO PHILIP WRITTEN IN ANSWER TO LETTER XXIX MY DEAR PHILIP: You are a magician rather than a lover. And no lover, I think, was ever so subtle at reasoning. At least you do not act the part as I supposed it was played. A lover, I thought, was one who stood at the door of a woman's heart and serenaded till she crept out upon her little balcony of sighs and kissed her hand to him, or shed a tokening bloom upon his upturned countenance. So far as I could imagine, he was prehistoric in the simplicity of his methods. Two things I never suspected: that love is the kind of romantic exegesis you represent it to be, or that every lover, psychically, is a sort of twin phenomenon--that he is _two_ men instead of one! And after he is married, I suppose he will be a domestic _trinity_, but with his godhead concerned with the affairs of the world at large. I am awed by the revelation; still, it excuses much in my conduct that I had before felt was reprehensible; for I have scarcely faced my own reflection in the glass since my ignominious capitulation. Something within charged treachery against poor Jessica. But if there are _two_ of you, and only _one_ of me, that fact gives a new and honourable complexion to my part in the transaction. However, the way you have multiplied yourself and doubled forces upon me may be good masculine tactics, but I am sure it is an unparliamentary advantage you have taken. For you have not only posed as a lover, but with the cunning words of a logician you prove what seemed wrong to be really a sublime right; and what _I_ charged as selfishness, _you_ call "a prayer." I am confused by your argument; it seems incontestable. But do you know, my Philip, that a woman's convictions are never reached by a mere argument? For they are hidden in her heart, not in her little bias-fold mind. And so, in spite of your sweet reasoning with me, and the assumption you make of omniscience concerning me, my convictions remain. Only, now, I do not know whether I cherish them against you or against the God who made me simple and you double.