Mortal Coils

this scene is like something remembered, clear and utterly calm; remembered across great gulfs of intervening time." But that was not really what he wanted to say. "You see what I mean?" he asked dubiously. She made no reply. How could she see? "This scene is so clear and pure and remote; you need the corresponding emotion. Those people were out of harmony. They weren't clear and pure enough." He seemed to be getting more muddled than ever. "It's an emotion of the young and of the old. You could feel it, I could feel it. Those people couldn't." He was feeling his way through obscurities. Where would he finally arrive? "Certain poems express it. You know Francis Jammes? I have thought so much of his work lately. Art instead of life, as usual; but then I'm made that way. I can't help thinking of Jammes. Those delicate, exquisite things he wrote about Clara d'Ellébeuse." "Clara d'Ellébeuse?" She stopped and stared at him. "You know the lines?" Mr. Topes smiled delightedly. "This makes me think, you make me think of them. '_F'aime dans les temps Clara d'Ellébeuse_....' But, my dear Barbara, what is the matter?" She had started crying, for no reason whatever.