-west
wind sweep down the sky over the bare ridge of a chalk down, winged
and shrouded, eager creatures, embattled like a host. They were grey
and dun-coloured, pale in the face. Their hair swept forward, not
back; for it seemed as if the wind in gusts went faster than
themselves, and was driving them faster than they could go. Another
might well have heard these beings like a terrible, rushing music, as
cries of havoc or desolation, wild peals of laughter, fury and
exultation. But to me they were inaudible. I heard the volleying of
the wind, but them I saw. So in the still ecstasy of that Dryad
bathing in light I saw, beyond doubt, what the Greeks called by that
name, what some of them saw; and I saw it in their mode, although at
the time of seeing I knew nothing of them or their modes, because it
happened to be also my mode. But so far I did not more than see her,
for though I haunted the place where she had been she never came there
again, nor never showed herself. It became to me sacred ground, where
with awed breath I could say, "Here indeed she stood and bathed
herself. Here I really saw her, and she me;" and I encompassed it with
a fantastic cult of my own invention. It may have been very comic, or
very foolish, but I don't myself think it was either, because it was
so sincere, and because the impulse to do it came so naturally. I used
to bare my head; I made a point of saving some of my luncheon (which
I took with me to school) that I might leave it there. It was real
sacrifice that, because I had a fine appetite, and it was pure
worship. In my solitary hours, which were many, I walked with her of
course, talked and played with her. But that was another thing,
imagination, or fancy, and I don't remember anything of what we said
or did. It needs to be carefully distinguished from the first
apparition with which imagination, having nothing whatever to proceed
upon, had nothing whatever to do. One thing, however, I do remember,
that our relations were entirely sexless; and, as I write, another
comes into mind. I saw no affinity between her and the creature of my
first discovery. It never occurred to me to connect the two either
positively, as being inhabitants of a world of their own, or
negatively, as not being of my world. I was not a reflective boy, but
my mind proceeded upon flashes, by leaps of intuition. When I was
moved I could conceive anything, everything; when I was unmoved I was
as dull as a clod. It was