"Yes, of course, they were landscapes.... But there is a way of treating even a landscape, so that it becomes objectionable. I have never seen such things before, myself. Those staring, red skies, those flushed appearances, those twisted black trees, those dark, slimy pools.... I really cannot tell you the unpleasant things they suggest....
"Those stormy heaths and wind-tossed foliage seem to me to typify the riot of the passions, and those mossy banks in the sun suggest sensuality.... Improper? Yes; highly improper I consider them!"
Regina stood listening wide-eyed, in sheer, paralysed amazement. That a person's mind could be so deformed and twisted that by its own blackness it could defile the innocent beauty and sweetness of a landscape was a fact so new to her, and so astounding, that she felt stunned by it.
That the man before her was speaking honestly she saw.
"But these things are just portraits of what we see about us," she went on, after a silence, her clear, logical mind battling with the psychological problem before her. "If the landscapes were improper, then so must the things be. What do you do when you go out and see a sunset sky?"
"If it suggests to me unsatisfactory thoughts, I don't look at it."
"But how can it?" queried the girl passionately. "When I see the sunset sky I feel I am being borne away on invisible wings to paradise; and these mossy banks, with the gold light lying on them, they are exquisite, and they are all around here.... You can't go out without seeing them."
"Don't continue talking like that, Regina. I have told you, when I go for my walks, if I see anything likely to disturb my moral sense I turn my eyes away; and because there are many dangerous and attractive things in nature about us, that is no reason why we should portray them and bring them into the home for constant contemplation."
Regina's haggard eyes looked blankly back at him. He was talking to her in an unknown language she could not understand; telling her incredible things she could not believe, for her own mind was bright and clear, crystal-like as a mirror, reflecting everything it faced with added beauty; diamond-like in its sharp, unstainable purity. And the obfuscated, turbid, sensual mass of incoherent ideas and thoughts that represented this man's mind appalled her, as she looked into it.
"If you destroyed the landscapes only because you thought them immoral, why did you tear up the interior of Exeter Cathedral? There could be no harm in that...."