Read "The Gates Between" by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Thus half in perfect poetry, part in simplest prose, opened the first canto of that long song which has made music in me; which has made music of me, since that happy night. Of the countless words which we have exchanged together in times succeeding, these, the few of our first meeting are carved upon my brain as salutations are carved in stone above the doorways of mansions. He that has loved as I did, may say why this should be so, if he can. I cannot. Time and storm beat against these inscriptions, and give them other colouring, -- the tints of years and weather; but while the house lasts and the rock holds the salutation lives. In most other matters, the force of recurring experience weakens association. He who loves cherishes the first words of the beloved as he cherishes her last.
The situation was simple enough: an injured man and a lovely woman, guests of the same summer hotel; a slow recovery; a leisurely sweet acquaintance; the light that never was on hill or shore; and so the charm was wrought. My accident held me a prisoner for six weeks. But my love put me in chains in six minutes.