Page:Ethel Churchill 1.pdf/14

8 and evening hours, when all they covet is repose? They see their shadow fall upon the grave: and need but to be at rest beneath! Youth is not less averse from change; but that is from exaggeration of its consequences, for all seems to the young so important, and so fatal. They are timid, because they know not what they fear; hopeful, because they know not what they expect. Despite their gayety of confidence, they yet dread the first plunge into life's unfathomed deep. Thus it was with Henrietta. She knew more of the world than most women of her years; for her converse had been chiefly with her uncle, a man of remarkable endowments: and she had read an infinite variety of book—read them, too, with that quick perception which seizes motive and meaning with intuitive accuracy. Such, however, inevitably is half knowledge; and theory that lacks the correction of practice, is as the soul without the body. In common with all of her impassioned temper, and sensitive feelings, she had much imagination. She had created a world which she was resolved to realise—a world where beauty was power,