Lord Frederick Leighton The Bath of Psyche painting

Lord Frederick Leighton The Bath of Psyche paintingLord Frederick Leighton Psamathe paintingLord Frederick Leighton Odalisque painting
night) and I came with her, uninvited, unopposed, expected, and behind closed doors took her in my arms and first kissed her, there was no alteration from the mood of the afternoon. Later, turning it over in my mind, as I turned in my bed with the rise and fall of the ship, through the long, lonely, drowsy night, I recalled the courtships of the past, dead, ten years; how, knotting my tie before setting out, putting the gardenia in my buttonhole, I would plan my evening and think at such and such a time, at such and such an opportunity, I shall cross the start-line and open my attack for better or worse; ‘this phase of the battle has gone on long enough’, I would think; ‘a decision must be reached.’ With Julia there were no phases, no start-line, no tactics at all. But later that night when she went to bed and I followed her to her door, she stopped me.
‘No, Charles, not yet. Perhaps never. I don’t know. I don’t know if I want love.’ Then something, some surviving ghost from those dead ten years - for