‘You forget there is a terrific storm,’ said Veronica, whose acquaintance with the Poet’s verse, though less frequently exhibited, is, I must confess, a good deal more intimate than Lamia’s.
‘Yes,’ said Lamia, quite undisconcerted, ‘only to disappear with the return of dawn, and never to be heard of again; and thenceforth we are told of nothing but genial airs, temperate sunshine, almond-trees and peach-trees ablow, and oleanders reddening into bloom.’
‘You must remember,’ said the Poet, ‘that the journey was made in the very flush and heyday of the Spring; and, if I have in any way exaggerated what I then beheld, was it not the proper exaggeration of rapture? It is the instinctive function of Art to reject, to select, and rightly to magnify what remains. Looking back, I seem to have omitted much, but to have exaggerated nothing. Have you not observed that the first impression we receive of scenery, as, indeed, of people likewise, is the one that abides with us? Many times since, I have beheld this tract betwixt mountain and main veiled in mist, dimmed by dust, even powdered with snow. But I always think of it as I saw it first.’
‘PEACH-TREES ABLOW’
‘Do you often think of Olympia?’ Lamia took courage to ask, seeing the Poet so effusive. ‘Was she very lovely?’
‘She was lovely beyond words,’ he answered, readily responding to her humour. ‘In fact, my recollection of her is that she was as perfect as the scenery in which she moved and had her being.’
‘How nice! I wish I had been Olympia, except that she seems to have had rather a scanty allowance of luggage for a longish journey, and no appetite to speak of, seeing that, if I remember rightly, she was quite satisfied with a missal and some dried figs. I fear, after all, I should have been but ill equipped for the character.‘ Veronica, to show her displeasure at Lamia’s levity with things deemed sacred, had risen from the olive bole on which she was sitting, and moved towards the sea. Lamia, quick to take a hint, went on, but with an altered voice:
‘Tell me, dear Poet, what took you first to Italy.’