Moonchild

16 Chapter OF THE SPREADING OF THE BUTTERFLY- NET; WITH A DELECTABLE DISCOURSE CONCERNING DIVERS ORDERS OF BEING; AND OF THE STATE OF THE LADY ILIEL, AND HER DESIRES, AND OF THE SECOND VISION THAT SHE HAD IN WAKING. A GREAT peace brooded on the Villa. Daily sun gathered the strength; and the west wind told the flowers that a little bird had whispered to him that the spring was coming. The results of the magical invocations began to peep through the veil of matter, like early crocuses. The atmosphere of house and garden was languid and romantic, so that a stranger could not have failed to feel it; yet with this was a timid yet vigorous purity, a concentration of the longing of the magicians. The physical signs were equally unmistakable. By night a faint blue luminosity radiated from the whole enclosure, visible to the natural eye; and to one seated in the garden, darting scintillations, star-sparkles, would appear, flitting from flower to flower, or tree to stone, if he kept as still and sensitive as one should in such a garden. And on the rightly tuned and tempered ear might fall, now and again, vague snatches of some far-off music. Then there were pallid perfumes in the air, like suggestions of things cool, and voluptuous, and chaste and delicate, and lazy, of those soft tropical loves which satisfy themselves with dreams. [215] All these phenomena were of a peculiar quality. It will be well to recite the fact, and to suggest an explanation. These sights and sounds are conveyed clearly enough; but they disappear the moment the full attention is turned upon them. They will not bear