Her Faithful Knight — page 341: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

And Last. 337 not a coward, and yet I shudder at the thought. I long with all my soul for peaceful, happy rest, for a dreamless ‘Garden of Proserpine.’ ” “From too much love of living, And hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be. That no life lives forever, That dead men come back never, That even the weariest river Flows somewhere safe to sea.” Darcy quoted Swinburne’s lines aloud as he again put down his pen. He was unusually fond of poetry, and in all his many wanderings over the face of the earth he had never failed to take with him his favorite volumes of Robert and Mrs. Browning, of Swinburne, de Musset, Tennyson and some minor poets, whose sweetness of ut- terance commended itself to him. His own verses were often pretty, if a little feeble and over-sensuous, and he would have liked nothing better than to be a minor poet himself, had the exercise of such a profession brought him in sufficient commercial return. Unfortunately for Darcy he possessed all the artistic susceptibilities and tastes, and was minded to indulge in all the irregularities usually associated with genius, while he altogether lacked the originative power which induces the world to overlook or condone such drawbacks on the part of its gifted sons. Had he possessed the makings of a great poet, or of a brilliant prose writer, his eccentricities would have been only what was to be expected from a genius, and the recital of them would have tended to greatly enliven and popularize his biography after death. But as it was, he felt he was misunderstood. His conduct had been pub- (CCOMMIUCLO OOK S (C@