‘Now, I have a fellow-feeling for the buccaneers,’ said Theodora. ‘Bertram Risingham was always a hero of mine. I believe it is an ancestral respect, probably we are their descendants.’
Violet wondered if she said so to frighten him.
‘“Rokeby” has given a glory to buccaneering,’ he replied. ‘It is the office of poetry to gild nature by breathing a soul into her. It is what the Americans are trying to do for their new world, still turning to England as their Greece.’
‘I meant no past associations,’ said Theodora, bluntly. ‘John carries his own with him.’
‘Yes; all may bear the colour of the imagination within.’
‘And of the purpose,’ said Theodora. ‘It is work in earnest, no matter where, that gives outward things their interest. Dreaming will never do it. Working will.’
Their conversation here closed; but Theodora said as they went home: ‘What did you think of him, Violet?’
‘He looks younger than I expected.’
‘He would be good for something if he could be made to work. I long to give him a pickaxe, and set him on upon the roads. Then he would see the beauty of them! I hate to hear him maunder on about imagination, while he leaves his tenantry to take their chance. HE knows what eyes Percy and John see things with!’
‘I am glad to have seen him,’ said Violet, reassured.