And if I allude here
to the fact of my being a painter, it is in order that I may not be
mistaken for another Aylwin. my cousin Percy, who in some unpublished
poems of his which I have seen has told how a sailor was turned into
a poet by love--love of Rhona Boswell. In the same way, these pages
are written to tell how I was made a painter by love of her whom I
first saw in Raxton churchyard, her who filled my being as Beatrice
filled the being of Dante when 'the spirit of life, which hath its
dwelling in the secretest chamber of the heart, began to tremble so
violently that the least pulses of his body shook therewith.'
III
Time went by, and I returned to Raxton. Just when I had determined
that, come what would, I would go into Wales, Wynne one day told me
that Winnie was coming to live with him at Raxton, her aunt having
lately died. 'The English lady,' said he, 'who lived with them so
long and eddicated Winifred, has gone to live at Carnarvon to get the
sea air.'
This news was at once a joy and a perplexity.
Wynne, though still the handsomest and finest man in Raxton, had sunk
much lower in intemperance of late.
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