He was merely talking the natural Christian language of this generation; whereas she, the child of a mystic--solitary, intense, and deeply reflective from her earliest Youth--was still thinking and speaking in the language of her father's generation.
But although, as often as his unwariness brought him near to these points of jarring, he would hurry away from them, conscious that here was the one profound difference between them; it was clear to him that insensibly she had moved further than she knew from her father's standpoint.

Even among these solitudes, far from men and literature, she had unconsciously felt the breath of her time in some degree.

As he penetrated deeper into the nature, he found it honeycombed as it were, here and there, with beautiful, unexpected softnesses and diffidences.
Once, after a long walk, as they were lingering homeward under a cloudy evening sky, he came upon the great problem of her life--Rose and Rose's art.

He drew her difficulty from her with the most delicate skill.
She had laid it bare, and was blushing to think how she had asked his counsel, almost before she knew where their talk was leading.

How was it lawful for the Christian to spend the few short years of the earthly combat in any pursuit however noble and exquisite, which merely aimed at the gratification of the senses, and implied in the pursuer the emphasizing rather than the surrender of self?
He argued it very much as Kingsley would have argued it, tried to lift her to a more intelligent view of a multifarious work, dwelling on the function of pure beauty in life, and on the influence of beauty on character, pointing out the value to the race of all individual development, and pressing home on her the natural religious question: How are the artistic aptitudes to be explained unless the Great Designer meant them to have a use and function in His world?
She replied doubtfully that she had always supposed they were lawful for recreation, and like any other trade for bread-winning, but-- Then he told her much that he knew about the humanizing effect of music on the poor.