Then all at once out of this dull, dead motley of harmonious nothingness, a
single gorgeous spot had revealed itself, swelled out, and disappeared: a
butterfly had opened its wings, laid bare their inside splendours, and
closed them again--presenting to the eye only the adaptive, protective,
exterior of those marvellous swinging doors of its life. He had wondered
then that Nature could so paint the two sides of this thinnest of all
canvases: the outside merely daubed over that it might resemble the dead and
common and worthless things amid which the creature had to live--a
masterwork of concealment; the inside designed and drawn and coloured with
lavish fullness of plan, grace of curve, marvel of hue--all for the purpose
of the exquisite self revelation which should come when the one great
invitation of existence was sought or was given.
As the young school-master now looked up--too quickly--at the woman who
stood over him, her eyes were like a butterfly's gorgeous wings that for an
instant had opened upon him and already were closing--closing upon the
hidden splendours of her nature--closing upon the power to receive upon
walls of beauty all the sunlight of the world.
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