The ear is as a rose leaf, a fluff of light hair trembles on the
curving nape, and the head is crowned with thick brown gold. "O to bathe
my face in those perfumed waves! O to kiss with a deep kiss the hollow
of that cool neck!..." The thought came he know not whence nor how, as
lightning falls from a clear sky, as desert horsemen come with a glitter
of spears out of the cloud; there is a shock, a passing anguish, and
they are gone.
He left her. So frightened was he at this sudden and singular obsession
of his spiritual nature by a lower and grosser nature, whose existence
in himself was till now unsuspected, and of whose life and wants in
others he had felt, and still felt, so much scorn, that in the tumult of
his loathing he could not gain the calm of mind necessary for an
examination of conscience. He could not look into his mind with any
present hope of obtaining a truthful reply to the very eminent and vital
question, how far his will had participated in that burning but wholly
inexcusable desire by which he had been so shockingly assailed.
That inner life, so strangely personal and pure, and of which he was so
proud, seemed to him now to be befouled, and all its mystery and inner
grace, and the perfect possession which was his sanctuary, lost to him
for ever.
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