Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/193

A Puritan Bohemia But apparently it was the real thing for Howard. Oh, this was a puzzling world!

It was not real for her. Down under love and friendship and every human feeling lay the artist passion. This alone had haunted her at night, risen with her in the morning, had been "nearer than breathing, closer than hands and feet." It was the deepest reality, as yet. To it should be given the devotion of an undivided heart.

She was to be only a wayfarer, then, past other people's lives. From the picture above the door her father's eyes looked over to her with the old sympathy. Into her mind came a fragment of the Odyssey that she had translated for him long ago in his study at Hazleton:

"Whoso draws near unwarned and hears the Sirens' voices, by him no wife nor little child shall ever stand, glad at his coming home."