But now let us have a walk in the garden.
Thither all repaired. They entered the conservatory to look at the flowers.
‘Which will you have, Mr. Atherton,’ asked Kate, ‘to represent your mystics? These stiff, apathetic cactuses and aloes, that seem to know no changes of summer and winter, or these light stemless blossoms, that send out their delicate roots into the air?’
‘Those Aroideæ, do you mean?’ replied Atherton. ‘I think we must divide them, and let some mystics have those impassive plants of iron for their device, while others shall wear the silken filaments of these aërial flowers that are such pets of yours.’
As they came out, the sun was setting in unusual splendour, and they stood in the porch to admire it.
‘I was watching it an hour ago,’ said Gower. ‘Then the western sky was crossed by gleaming lines of silver, with broken streaks of grey and purple between. It was the funeral pyre not yet kindled, glittering with royal robe and arms of steel, belonging to the sun-god. Now, see, he has descended, and lies upon it—the torch is applied, the glow of the great burning reaches over to the very east. The clouds, to the zenith, are wreaths of smoke, their volumes ruddily touched beneath by the flame on the horizon, and those about the sun are like ignited beams in a great conflagration, now falling in and lost in the radiance, now sending out fresh shapes of flashing fire: that is not to be painted!’
Lowestoffe (starting). The swan, I declare! How can he have got out? That scoundrel, John!
Atherton. Never mind. I know what he comes for. He is a messenger from Lethe, to tell us not to forget good Tauler.
Lowestoffe. Lethe! Nonsense.