It
now seemed to him that in the last few minutes he had lowered it
almost to the level of the emotion inspired by Miss Poppy Grace. It
was not, and it never could be, what it had been three weeks ago. Why,
he could not even recall his sensations of Easter Sunday, that strange
renewal of his heart's virginity his first vague imperfect vision of
the dawn of love, his joy when he discerned its tender and mysterious
approach. He knew that it held no rights, or held them only on the
most subtle and uncertain tenure, that his soul touched the soul of
Lucia Harden by the extreme tips of its wings stretched to the utmost.
Still his passion for her had been, so far, satisfied by that
difficult and immaterial relationship. He was bound to her by an
immaterial, intangible link.
But he had put an end to that relationship; he had broken the
immaterial, intangible link. It was as if he had given a body to some
delicate and spiritual dream, and destroyed it in a furious embrace.
And in destroying it he had destroyed everything.
Then he reflected that though this deed seemed to belong wholly to the
present moment, it had in reality been done a long time before, when
he first became the slave of that absurd and execrable passion for
Miss Poppy Grace. Rickman the poet had believed in Love, the immortal
and invincible, the highest of high divinities, and as such had
celebrated him in song. But he had been unfortunate in his first
actual experience of him.
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