Anyway, we talked a good deal but I actually thought a great deal about The Garden of Virtues, and I visualized clearly Shelley's return to the garden and just how it would look. I saw a trail of antique photographs, and I would tell the old story with the sense of tragedy it deserved, the children deserting the garden, and I clearly saw Shelley's larger booted foot stepping upon one of the weathered photographs, him lifting it, looking at it, and becoming involved in a reverie of the past as slowly he re-entered the old places, touched the old things-- which were put away for him in a rusted cabinet.
I am presently reading two engrossing books after months of non-engrossing books. One is The Turquoise Mask, by Phyllis Whitney, and the other is Mistress Anne, by Temple Bailey. Whitney's book is more suspense-oriented and very intelligently written. Bailey's book is excruciatingly romantic. Each chapter gives me a reverie and a delight, and I feel that wonderful sense that there is something so beautiful I can only glimpse in shadows and touch only through reading or writing fiction. Her Glory of Youth I found in an antique shop in my childhood, and I treasured it. I never dreamed I would find all of her other books online one day for free download.
I walked out to the tank this morning. I made a cup of tea and held it as I walked across the very long pasture, in gray light before sunrise. The wind was high and blew across me, splashing my hot tea in my face at one point. There were some big dogs in that area, and when I realized there was no fence between us, I came back to the house without climbing the hill to the tank.
Do you know what it is to come out in early morning light, with only fields on all sides of you, as dressed or undressed as you like, with your cup casually in your hands, and just start walking in one direction, any direction, just walking?