" Was he not playing to the picture, playing to
that figure in it? And did not his musical imagination seek to reproduce
in sound the vision of the life of that mailed knight who never lived and
died? The purity of his expression, always consummate, was to-night more
peculiar, more unearthly, than before in any place, at any moment. And,
as mere line can convey to the senses of man a conception of a great
virtue or of a great vice, the actual shape of his features, thus seen in
profile, was the embodiment of an exquisitely ascetic purity, as much an
embodiment as is a drop of water pierced by a sunbeam. This struck both
Doctor Levillier and Julian, and the doctor was amazed anew at the silent
decree that the invisible shall be made visible in forms comprehensible
to the commonest minds. Sin would surely flee from a temple sculptured
in such a shape as the body of Valentine, as a vampire would flee from
the bloodless courts of the heaven of the Revelation. Lust cannot lie
at ease on a crystal couch, or rest its dark head upon a pillow of pale
ivory. And the message of this strange, unearthly youth now given in
music, and to the air and the dust--for Valentine had lost knowledge
of his friends--was crystalline too.
Pages:
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90