Beatrice sat down on the foot of her bed, and leaning her arm
upon the window-sill looked out upon the lovely quiet night. How dark
the pine trees massed against the sky; how soft was the whisper of the
sea, and how vast the heaven through which the stars sailed on.
What was it, then, this love of hers? Was it mere earthly passion? No,
it was more. It was something grander, purer, deeper, and quite undying.
Whence came it, then? If she was, as she had thought, only a child of
earth, whence came this deep desire which was not of the earth? Had she
been wrong, had she a soul--something that could love with the body and
through the body and beyond the body--something of which the body with
its yearnings was but the envelope, the hand or instrument? Oh, now it
seemed to Beatrice that this was so, and that called into being by her
love she and her soul stood face to face acknowledging their unity. Once
she had held that it was phantasy: that such spiritual hopes were but
exhalations from a heart unsatisfied; that when love escapes us on the
earth, in our despair, we swear it is immortal, and that we shall find
it in the heavens.
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