"
"I fancy it is our peculiar good luck that we don't see the limits of
our minds," said Rowland. "We are young, compared with what we may one
day be. That belongs to youth; it is perhaps the best part of it. They
say that old people do find themselves at last face to face with a solid
blank wall, and stand thumping against it in vain. It resounds, it seems
to have something beyond it, but it won't move! That 's only a reason
for living with open doors as long as we can!"
"Open doors?" murmured Roderick. "Yes, let us close no doors that open
upon Rome. For this, for the mind, is eternal summer! But though my
doors may stand open to-day," he presently added, "I shall see no
visitors. I want to pause and breathe; I want to dream of a statue.
I have been working hard for three months; I have earned a right to a
reverie."
Rowland, on his side, was not without provision for reflection, and
they lingered on in broken, desultory talk. Rowland felt the need for
intellectual rest, for a truce to present care for churches, statues,
and pictures, on even better grounds than his companion, inasmuch as
he had really been living Roderick's intellectual life the past three
months, as well as his own.
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