In the Wilderness eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 864 pages of information about In the Wilderness.

In the Wilderness eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 864 pages of information about In the Wilderness.
flood that could not be gainsaid.  She manifested her influence upon him subtly through the maidens of the Porch, through the almost neat perfection of the Theseion, through the detached grandeur of those columns in the waste place, that golden and carved Olympieion which acts as an outpost to Athens.  It was as if she had the power to put something of herself into everything that he cared for so that he might care for it more, whether it were a golden sunset on the sea over which they drifted in a sailing-boat off the coast of old Phaleron, or a marble figure in a museum.  She dwelt in the stones of a ruined temple; she set her feet upon the dream of the distant mountains; she was in the dawn, the twilight, and in all the ways of the moon, because he loved her and found her in all things when they were together.

He did not know whether she, in a similar mysterious way, found him in all that she enjoyed.  He did not ask her the question.  Perhaps, really, in that truth of apprehension which lives very far down in a man, he had divined the answer, although he told himself that he did not know.

He found always something new to enjoy and to worship in Rosamund.

They had many tastes in common.  At first, of deliberate choice, they had bounded their honeymoon with the precipices of the Acropolis, learning the Doric lesson on that height above the world.  Then one day they had made a great sacrifice and gone to pass their hours in the pine woods of Kephissia.  They had returned to the Acropolis quite athirst.  But by degrees the instinct to wander a little farther afield took greater hold upon them, their love of physical exercise asserted itself.  They began to take long rides on horseback, carrying food in their saddle-bags.  The gently wild charm of Greece laid its spell upon them.  They both loved Athens, but now they began to love, too, escaping from Athens.

Directly they were out of the city they were in a freedom that appealed to the gipsy in both.  Dion’s strong boyishness, which had never yet been cast off, was met and countered by the best of good fellowship in Rosamund.  Though she could be very serious, and even what he called “strange,” she was never depressed or sad.  Her good spirits were unfailing and infectious.  She reveled in a “jaunt” or a “day out,” and her physical strength kept fatigue far from her.  She could ride for many hours without losing her freshness and zest.  Every little episode of the wayside interested and entertained her.  Everything comic made her laugh.  She showed an ardor almost like an intelligent child’s in getting to understand all she saw.  Scenery, buildings, animal life, people, every offering of Greece was eagerly accepted, examined and discussed by her.  She was the perfect comrade for the wilds.  Their common joy in the wilds drew her and Dion more closely together.  Never before had Rosamund been quite away from civilization, from the hitherto easily borne trammels of modern complicated life.  She “found herself” in the adventure.  The pure remoteness of Greece came to her like natal air.  She breathed it in with a sort of rapture.  It was as Dion had said.  She was not merely in, she was of, Greece.

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In the Wilderness from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.