A strangling terror of herself seized her--a terror of this new and hideous darkness that had descended upon her spirit--a terror of this overmastering impulse which threatened her soul. It was part of the dominance of the flesh that its senses should be opened only to itself, only to the earthy and the lower. This penalty was already upon her; of all in that congregation, she, only she, must see the bestial lurking everywhere, even in God’s house, and in the vestments of His minister.
“_So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God._”
It was part of their punishment that they could no longer please themselves. Out from every shape of nature and art, from the shadows of grove and the sunshine of open plain, from the crowded street and from the silent church must start forever this spectre, this unsightly comrade of fleshly imagination. This was what it meant to be carnally minded. Margaret’s soul was weak and dizzy with pain.
For in some such way will every woman cry. The very purity of her soul will rise to bar out the love that is of earth, earthy--the beautiful human love so young, so tender-eyed and warm-fingered, and with the lovely earth-light that is about its brows. And then, when the soul grows weary of the pallid thoughts, when the chill of the shadows strikes through--when the walls grow cold and the soul lifts iron bar and chain to let in the human sunshine, then the pale images that throng the house gather and are frightened at the very joy of the sun, and they try to shut the door again against the shining, and sit sorrowful in a trembling dark.
The cry of the woman is, “Give me soul! Give me spirituality!” Oh, loved hand! Oh, eyes! Oh, kissed lips and fondled hair! The woman’s love gives to each of you a soul. You will shine for her in her nethermost heaven.
“Tell me not of my love,” she cries, “that it is corporeal and must fade! Tell me only that it is of the spirit, a fond and heavenly light, such as never was in earthly sunrise or in evening star! A soul, but not a body! An essence, but no substance! It is too lovely to be of earth, too sweet to be only of this failing human frame. Its speech is the speech of angels, and its eyes are like the cherubim. Tell me not that it is not all of the soul!” So, until she dreams the last dream of love in earth-gardens, until she closes her soul’s eyes to dream of the humanity of love, the dignity of human passion, until then she perfumes the lily and paints the rose.