among the very conditions of an
irregular and guilty love, as in sinful games of chance:--they have
begun to talk of these things in Paris, to amuse themselves with the
spectacle of them, set forth here, in the story of poor Manon
Lescaut--for whom fidelity is impossible, so vulgarly eager for the
money which can buy pleasures such as hers--with an art like Watteau's
own, for lightness and grace. Incapacity of truth, yet with such
tenderness, such a gift of tears, on the one side: on the other, a
faith so absolute as to give to an illicit love almost the regularity
of marriage! And this is the book those fine ladies in Watteau's
"conversations," who look so exquisitely pure, lay down on the cushion
when the children run up to have their laces righted. Yet the pity of
it! What floods of weeping! There is a tone about it which strikes me
as going well with the grace of these leafless birch-trees against the
sky, the pale silver of their bark, and a certain delicate odour of
decay which rises from the soil. It is all one half-light; and the
heroine, nay! the [38] hero himself also, that dainty Chevalier des
Grieux, with all his fervour, have, I think, but a half-life in them
truly, from the first. And I could fancy myself almost of their
condition sitting here alone this evening, in which a premature touch
of winter makes the world look but an inhospitable place of
entertainment for one's spirit. With so little genial warmth to hold
it there, one feels that the merest accident might detach that flighty
guest altogether. So chilled at heart things seem to me, as I gaze on
that glacial point in the motionless sky, like some mortal spot whence
death begins to creep over the body!

And yet, in the midst of this, by mere force of contrast, comes back to
me, very vividly, the true colour, ruddy with blossom and fruit, of the
past summer, among the streets and gardens of some of our old towns we
visited; when the thought of cold was a luxury, and the earth dry
enough to sleep on. The summer was indeed a fine one; and the whole
country seemed bewitched. A kind of infectious sentiment passed upon
us, like an efflux from its flowers and flower-like
architecture--flower-like to me at least, but of which I never felt the
beauty before.

And as I think of that, certainly I have to confess that there is a
wonderful reality about this lovers' story; an accordance between
themselves and the conditions of things around them, s