The portraits,
of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full
of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out
all history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when
I looked at my Crevelli and on the rose in the hand of the
Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed
more like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous
faces of my Francesca, I knew all a Christian's ecstasy without his
slavery to rule and custom; when I pondered over the antique bronze
gods and goddesses, which I had mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a
pagan's delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless
destiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to
my bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with
intricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare
in the orange of the glory of the world, Dante in the dull red of
his anger, Milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and I could
experience what I would of human passions without their bitterness and
without satiety.
of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full
of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out
all history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when
I looked at my Crevelli and on the rose in the hand of the
Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed
more like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous
faces of my Francesca, I knew all a Christian's ecstasy without his
slavery to rule and custom; when I pondered over the antique bronze
gods and goddesses, which I had mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a
pagan's delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless
destiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to
my bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with
intricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare
in the orange of the glory of the world, Dante in the dull red of
his anger, Milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and I could
experience what I would of human passions without their bitterness and
without satiety.
Yeats
