Page 231 - sons-and-lovers

into appreciating things thus, and then they lived for her.
She seemed to need things kindling in her imagination or
in her soul before she felt she had them. And she was cut off
from ordinary life by her religious intensity which made the
world for her either a nunnery garden or a paradise, where
sin and knowledge were not, or else an ugly, cruel thing.
So it was in this atmosphere of subtle intimacy, this
meeting in their common feeling for something in Nature,
that their love started.
Personally, he was a long time before he realized her. For
ten months he had to stay at home after his illness. For a
while he went to Skegness with his mother, and was per-
fectly happy. But even from the seaside he wrote long letters
to Mrs. Leivers about the shore and the sea. And he brought
back his beloved sketches of the flat Lincoln coast, anx-
ious for them to see. Almost they would interest the Leivers
more than they interested his mother. It was not his art Mrs.
Morel cared about; it was himself and his achievement. But
Mrs. Leivers and her children were almost his disciples.
They kindled him and made him glow to his work, whereas
his mother’s influence was to make him quietly determined,
patient, dogged, unwearied.
He soon was friends with the boys, whose rudeness was
only superficial. They had all, when they could trust them-
selves, a strange gentleness and lovableness.
‘Will you come with me on to the fallow?’ asked Edgar,
rather hesitatingly.
Paul went joyfully, and spent the afternoon helping to
hoe or to single turnips with his friend. He used to lie with

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