'O auntie! auntie! we thought you called yourself a democrat!' said Elsie.
'Politically, my dear, but not socially,' was the reply.
'I see,' continued Mrs. Grundy, 'that, by raising other issues, you hope to escape an explanation of the mystery to which I have referred.'
'A mystery indeed!' replied Lucy D----. 'The mystery of nature, of creation, of the communion of the creature with the infinitely bountiful Creator. Have you never wandered away from the beaten track, from tiresome dinners, with mercenary waiters and elaborate courses, from yawning, _blasé_ men, and over-dressed, artificial, weakly women, and, resting upon some quiet hillside, suffered the glories of external nature to fill your soul as you drained the cup of beauty, until sunrises and sunsets, storm clouds and morning mists, broad bands of light and darksome shadows, steep mountains and curving valleys, hurrying brooks and tidal oceans, dusky pine forests and tremulous bluebells, dreamily floated before the vision, soothing care and the petty wounds inflicted by the human denizens of this nether world? I love my kind, I share their faults and follies, I pity their sorrows, and would do my utmost to succor or to soothe; but I do not understand them as I do the woods: their faces I readily forget, but never the forms of mountain crag, of noble tree, or of first spring wild flower. Among men I may be misunderstood, disliked perhaps, or, more generally, simply ignored and overlooked; but among the hills I fear no harsh, no indifferent word: each treasure of beauty breathes to me of One who knows my every heart-beat, One whom I can love without fear of wound or disenchantment. The mountain clefts have no unkind words, no fault-finding, no ridicule, no rash judgments for the sons of men. They offer clear springs, fresh fruits, and festal flowers, peace and rest and pure joy!'
'Really, Lucy,' said Aunt Sarah, 'I am not sure your rhapsody has made the mystery any plainer than before. May I not, in my turn, ask if your feelings are quite Christian? Are you not afraid you entertain a species of repulsion toward your fellow men?'
'Aunt Sarah, I nearly always feel more for them than they for me. Perhaps they hurt my vanity by overwhelming me with the sense of my own insignificance. Be that as it may, their everlasting wrangling among themselves is more than I can endure. When people begin to quarrel, even to disagree warmly, the blood rushes to my brain, and I long for a cool breeze from some piny height, a mossy seat by some calm lake, that mirrors only the blue of heaven, the measured flow of falling waters, the rustle of leaves, the hum of bees, or the song of birds.'