Page:Confessions of a wife (IA confessionsofwif00adamiala).pdf/135

out of me yet, though you have n't called it 'sumptuous' for quite a time, and to-night how can imagination cherish any but the Christian images?

"I admit that the others ring rather hollow. Even the great Venus, solemn and strong, ideal of Unattained Love,—perhaps, who knows? of the Unattainable,—woman from the first heartbeat, but goddess to the end, even she, the glory of paganism—she bows with the shepherds before the Child of Bethlehem. Can't you see just how she would look, the awful Venus, on her knees? I can.

"I am writing by the firelight and the electric street-light, crumpled upon a cricket between the two, the paper on my lap and, Dear, the tears upon my cheeks. I am thinking of the strange light that blossomed on the sky that night in Palestine. I have always thought it was deep pink, like a bursting rose. I am thinking of the village khan and the grotto stable; it flits before me like the plates in a sacred magic-lantern at some religious scene, now this slide, now that, returning on themselves and repeating the effect, and always centering upon one group.

"Dear, I have done all my Christmasing for Father, for the servants, for Job, and for everybody, and I have not much for you; only one