Flavian, too, with his fine, clear mastery
of the practically effective, had early laid hold of the principle, as
axiomatic in literature: That 'to know when one's self is interested, is
the first condition of interesting other people'"_ And once more: "_As
it oftenest happens also, with natures of genuinely poetic quality,
those piecemeal beginnings came suddenly to harmonious completeness
among the fortunate incidents, the physical heat and light, of one
singularly happy day_."
And, over all, what a beauty! a beauty at once so sensuous and so
spiritual--the beauty of flowering laurel, the beauty of austerity
aflower. Here the very senses prayed. Surely this was the most
beautiful prose book ever written! It had been compared, he saw, with
Gautier's "Mademoiselle de Maupin;" but was not the beauty of that
masterpiece, in comparison with the beauty of this, as the beauty of a
leopard-skin to the beauty of a statue of Minerva, withdrawn in a
grove of ilex.
Still Ned delayed, and, meanwhile, the third glass of port had come and
gone, and at length, reluctantly, Henry emerged from his tavern-cloister
upon the warm brilliancy of the streets.
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