I knew, of course, what was the matter with me; the symptoms were
unmistakable. After having made up my mind that I was an old woman,
and that there was nothing more in life for me save labour--here the
little archer had come, and with the sharpest of his golden arrows,
had shot me through. I had all the thrills, the raptures and
delicious agonies of first love; I lived no longer in myself, but in
the thought of another person. Twenty times a day I looked at my
picture, and cried aloud: "Oh, beautiful, beautiful!"
I do not know how much of her I have been able to give. I have told
of our first talk--but words are so cold and dead! I stop and ask:
What there is, in all nature, that has given me the same feeling? I
remember how I watched the dragon-fly emerging from its chrysalis.
It is soft and green and tender; it clings to a branch and dries its
wings in the sun, and when the miracle is completed, there for a
brief space it poises, shimmering with a thousand hues, quivering
with its new-born ecstasy. And just so was Sylvia; a creature from
some other world than ours, as yet unsoiled by the dust and heat of
reality. It came to me with a positive shock, as a terrifying thing,
that there should be in this world of strife and wickedness any
young thing that took life with such intensity, that was so
palpitating with eagerness, with hope, with sympathy.
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