They are to be lived in, not looked at; and their beauty
must grow as naturally from their use as the flower from its stem,
so that it shall not be possible to say where the one ends and
the other begins. Not that beauty will come of itself; there must be
the feeling to be satisfied before any satisfaction will come.
But we shall not help it by pretending the feeling, nor by trying
to persuade others or ourselves that we are pleased with what has
been pleasing to other nations and under other circumstances.
Our poverty, if poverty it be, is not disgraceful, until we attempt
to conceal it by our affectation of foreign airs and graces.
MAYA, THE PRINCESS.
The sea floated its foam-caps upon the gray shore, and murmured its
inarticulate love-stories all day to the dumb rocks above; the blue
sky was bordered with saffron sunrises, pink sunsets, silver
moon-fringes, or spangled with careless stars; the air was full of
south-winds that had fluttered the hearts of a thousand roses and a
million violets with long, deep kisses, and then flung the delicate
odors abroad to tell their exploits, and set the butterflies mad
with jealousy, and the bees crazy with avarice. And all this bloom
was upon the country of Larrierepensee, when Queen Lura's little
daughter came to life in the Topaz Palace that stood on Sunrise Hills,
and was King Joconde's summer pavilion.
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