Half-selfish for a
moment, she prays that he may remain for ever a child, to her solace;
welcomes now the promise of his chastity (though chastity were itself
a kind of death) as the pledge of his abiding always with her. And
these thoughts were but infixed more deeply by the sudden stroke of
joy at his return home in ceremonial trim and grown more manly, with
much increase of self-confidence in that brief absence among his
fellows.
[173] For, from the first, the unwelcome child, the outcast, had been
successful, with that special good fortune which sometimes attends
the outcast. His happiness, his invincible happiness, had been found
engaging, perhaps by the gods, certainly by men; and when King
Theseus came to take note how things went in that rough life he had
assigned them, he felt a half liking for the boy, and bade him come
down to Athens and see the sights, partly by way of proof to his
already somewhat exacting wife of the difference between the old love
and the new as measured by the present condition of their respective
offspring. The fine nature, fastidious by instinct, but bred with
frugality enough to find the charm of continual surprise in that
delicate new Athens, draws, as he goes, the full savour of its
novelties; the marbles, the space and finish, the busy gaiety of its
streets, the elegance of life there, contrasting with while it adds
some mysterious endearment to the thought of his own rude home.
Pages:
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208