There are moments when Nature reveals the passion hidden beneath the
careless calm of her ordinary moods--violent spring flashing white on
almond-blossom through the purple clouds; a snowy, moonlit peak, with
its single star, soaring up to the passionate blue; or against the
flames of sunset, an old yew-tree standing dark guardian of some fiery
secret.
There are moments, too, when in a picture-gallery, a work, noted by the
casual spectator as '......Titian--remarkably fine,' breaks through the
defences of some Forsyte better lunched perhaps than his fellows,
and holds him spellbound in a kind of ecstasy. There are things, he
feels--there are things here which--well, which are things. Something
unreasoning, unreasonable, is upon him; when he tries to define it with
the precision of a practical man, it eludes him, slips away, as the
glow of the wine he has drunk is slipping away, leaving him cross, and
conscious of his liver. He feels that he has been extravagant, prodigal
of something; virtue has gone out of him. He did not desire this glimpse
of what lay under the three stars of his catalogue. God forbid that
he should know anything about the forces of Nature! God forbid that he
should admit for a moment that there are such things! Once admit that,
and where was he? One paid a shilling for entrance, and another for the
programme.
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