II
THE STORY OF ZENOBIA
I have known her in summer and in winter--in summer flushed and
gorgeous like the wild rose, in winter lily-pale, or grey and haggard
as the town she lived in. She was a beautiful daughter of the Earth, a
wondrous flower. The summer night was in her dark hair, the south wind
in her eyes. Whoever looked upon her in silence knew himself in the
presence of the mystery of beauty, of the mystery of an imperious
inner beauty. It was because of this, because of some majestic spirit
manifest in her, shining through her in soul's colours, that I called
her Zenobia, naming her after that Blythedale Zenobia who always wore
the rich hot-house flower in her bosom. And it was to me as if my
Zenobia wore that flower there also, and in silence, a new flower each
day, wondrous and rich. Never could she be seen without that flower
there, and it was as if on that flower depended her very life. Should
the flower at any time be wanting, then all were wanting.
I remember her as she was one June when we gathered eglantine
together, and the richest and deepest of all reds in roses. In the
midsummer afternoons we plucked our garlands and brought them home at
sunset time. Such afternoons they were, tempting all living things
into the symphony of glory, such afternoons of splendour that now,
looking back, it seems to be the very acme of their glory that we also
were to be found there in those woods with all the rest.
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