The freedom of a great expanse seems to arouse primitive instincts. Idylls are not enacted in drawing-rooms. It is the odorous glades are Hymen's haunts. In the meads of Enna Proserpine was wooed. Zephir won Aurora a-maying. On Latmos top Endymion was nightly kissed. In the boscage Daphnis proposed—and was there and then accepted.[35] If only Fashion would decree that honeymoons should be spent under Jove! Lovers ken the banks where amaranths blow, and poets build their altars in the fields. How actually physically exhilarating sometimes is
"The champaign with its endless fleece
Of feathery grasses everywhere!
Silence and passion, joy and peace,
......
Such life there, through such lengths of hours,
Such miracles performed in play,
Such primal naked forms of flowers,
Such letting Nature have her way."[36]
There must survive in the cosmic consciousness of the race, deep-seated and ineradicable memories of primæval nuptials. What a pity it is that that supreme, that sacred drama called "Love" should be enacted by youths and damsels, not in secluded groves amidst perfumed and amorous blooms, but in ball-rooms and boudoirs.[37]