aspects. And, further than this, it ought to be demonstrable, a priori,
that a mind fed on the best and not confused by the weak and diluted, or
corrupted by images of the essentially vulgar and vile, would be morally
healthy and best fitted to cope with the social problems of life. The
Testaments reveal about everything that is known about human nature, but
such is their clear, high spirit, and their quality, that no one ever
traced mental degeneration or low taste in literature, or want of
virility in judgment, to familiarity with them. On the contrary, the
most vigorous intellects have acknowledged their supreme indebtedness to
them.

It is not likely that Philip made any such elaborate analysis of
the girl with whom he was in love, or attempted, except by a general
reference to the method of her training, to account for the purity of
her mind and her vigorous discernment. He was in love with her more
subtle and hidden personality, with the girl just becoming a woman, with
the mysterious sex that is the inspiration of most of the poetry and a
good part of the heroism in the world. And he would have been in love
with her, let her education have been what it might. He was in love
before he heard her speak. And whatever she would say was bound to have
a quality of interest and attraction that could be exercised by no other
lips. It might be argued--a priori again, for the world is bound to go
on in its own way--that there would be fewer marriages if the illusion
of the sex did not suffice for the time to hide intellectual poverty,
and, what is worse, ignobleness of disposition.

It was doubtless fortunate for this particular lovemaking, though it
did not seem so to Philip, that it was very much obstructed by lack of
opportunities, and that it was not impaired in its lustre by too much
familiarity. In truth, Philip would have said that he saw very little
of Evelyn, because he never saw her absolutely alone. To be sure he was
much in her presence, a welcome member of the group that liked to idle
on the veranda of the inn, and in the frequent excursions, in which
Philip seemed to be the companion of Mrs. Mavick rather than of her
daughter. But she was never absent from his thought, his imagination
was wholly captive to her image, and the passion grew in these hours of
absence until she became an indispensable associate in all that he was
or could ever hope to be. Alice, who discerned very clearly Mrs. Mavick
and her ambit