XIX.
An ignorant foreign body—and, after all, everyone is a foreigner somewhere and ignorant about something—once committed the enormity of asking his host, just back from cub-hunting, whether the hedgerows, when he went out of a morning, were not quite lovely with those dewy cobwebs which the French call Veils of the Virgin. It had to be explained that such a sight was the most unwelcome you could imagine, since it was a sure sign there would be no scent. The poor foreigner was duly crestfallen, as happens whenever one has nearly spoilt a friend's property through some piece of blundering.
But the blunder struck me as oddly symbolical. Are we not most of us pursuing for our pleasure, though sometimes at risk of our necks, a fox of some kind: worth nothing as meat, little as fur, good only to gallop after, and whose unclean scent is incompatible with those sparkling gossamers flung, for everyone's delight, over gorse and hedgerow?
THE END.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE The edition from which this text was drawn is volume 4175 of the Tauchnitz Edition of British Authors, where it appeared together with Laurus Nobilis, also by Vernon Lee. The volume was published in 1910. | |
| solely for the purpose or | solely for the purpose of |
| cœteris paribus | cæteris paribus |
| Mautineia | Mantineia |
| the Gothic boldness of light and shade of the Campanile make | the Gothic boldness of light and shade of the Campanile makes |
| Tuskan spirit | Tuscan spirit |
| the workmen will be able (…) to see (…)what he is making | the workman will be able (…) to see (…) what he is making |
| learn their appearance and care for it | learn their appearance and care for them |
| The death, (…) the (…) flight of the fox, occupy no part of the hunter'sconsciousness, and forms no part | The death, (…) the (…) flight of the fox, occupy no part of the hunter'sconsciousness, and form no part |
| the Monnets | the Monets |
[The end of Laurus Nobilis by Vernon Lee]