Page:My Dear Cornelia (1924).pdf/290

 history and a great poetry—that will depend on his imagination and on his susceptibility to high and noble emotions. At present he strikes me as a fairly cool-tempered and slightly cocky young positivist, unconscious that he is building an altar, certainly expecting no fire from heaven to light his sacrifice—rather disdainful, indeed, of all cults which profess that they have come down out of the skies."

"But why, why," cried Cornelia, "does he disdain what comes down out of the skies? That, for me, is the indispensable essence of religion. That is what makes the difference between a house and a church. Till it comes, there can be nothing sacramental. And unless the sacramental element enters, there is nothing really binding and obligatory and final in all this miscellaneous collection of beliefs. And everything gets so 'messy' and so confused. And everyone picks and chooses, and does just what he pleases. I don't wish to pick and choose—not about the really great things, I mean; I want those things decided."

We had been strolling slowly up through the deep night of the walnut grove along the path which ends at the gate in the walled garden. The darkness, which had made us almost invisible, had