After a somewhat lengthened pause, Lamia said: ‘With which do you sympathise, Veronica? With the mountains, or with the sea?’
‘O, with the sea!
‘The sweetest thing in all the world is pain
Consoled by Love.‘
‘And you, Sir Poet?’
‘Surely, with both,’ he answered.
‘But,’ she persisted, ‘with which of the two, chiefly?’
‘I suppose,’ he replied, ‘with the ineradicable selfishness of a man, one inclines towards the mountains. Pacem summa tenent. Serenity dwells upon the heights.’
