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and he stated that it needed a glimpse to set him in tune
with life. Philip for months had had no one with whom he
could talk of art and books. Since the Paris days Hayward
had immersed himself in the modern French versifiers, and,
such a plethora of poets is there in France, he had several
new geniuses to tell Philip about. They walked through the
gallery pointing out to one another their favourite pictures;
one subject led to another; they talked excitedly. The sun
was shining and the air was warm.
‘Let’s go and sit in the Park,’ said Hayward. ‘We’ll look for
rooms after luncheon.’
The spring was pleasant there. It was a day upon which
one felt it good merely to live. The young green of the trees
was exquisite against the sky; and the sky, pale and blue,
was dappled with little white clouds. At the end of the orna-
mental water was the gray mass of the Horse Guards. The
ordered elegance of the scene had the charm of an eigh-
teenth-century picture. It reminded you not of Watteau,
whose landscapes are so idyllic that they recall only the
woodland glens seen in dreams, but of the more prosaic
Jean-Baptiste Pater. Philip’s heart was filled with lightness.
He realised, what he had only read before, that art (for there
was art in the manner in which he looked upon nature)
might liberate the soul from pain.
They went to an Italian restaurant for luncheon and or-
dered themselves a fiaschetto of Chianti. Lingering over the
meal they talked on. They reminded one another of the peo-
ple they had known at Heidelberg, they spoke of Philip’s
friends in Paris, they talked of books, pictures, morals, life;

0 Of Human Bondage