How different it
was! Yet in it, too, there was the beating of the pulse of life. But
there was no regret, no looking back into the past, no sombre
exhibition of force seeking--as a thing groping, desperately in a gulf
--an object on which to exercise itself. Instead there was aspiration,
there was expectation, there was the wonder of bright eyes lifted to
the sun. And there was a reverence that for a moment recalled to
Artois the reverence of the dead man from whose loins this child had
sprung. But Vere's was the reverence of understanding, not of a dim
amazement--more beautiful than Maurice's. When he had been with
Hermione under the brooding rock Artois had been impregnated with the
passionate despair of humanity, and had seen for a moment the world
with out-stretched hands, seeking, surely, for the nonexistent,
striving to hold fast the mirage. Now he was impregnated with
humanity's passionate hope. He saw life light-footed in a sweet chase
for things ideal. And all the blackness of the rock and of the silent
sea was irradiated with the light that streamed from a growing soul.
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