Excerpt from Pagan Love The peacock wakened to the morning and prepared for matins. He loved to do homage to the sun, but as yet the sun was under the horizon, or at least concealed by houses, so that the homage was a little premature. The peacock's temple was a tree, and the tree a Cedar of Lebanon. Near its trunk the boughs slanted upwards, but from the strongest branches others drooped a little down. Against the pale and tremulous sky, they cut a stencil of purple lines and masses, except where the enveloping light revealed the foliage green. The topmost foliage flattened itself out in a broad roof. Hardly yet time for matins, and yet a seat in front of the tree temple was occupied already. You could not say that this was a worshipper, though the pale yellow cheeks, the bony hands, the shadow of unearthliness under the eyes were such as often mark religious fervour, especially on fast days. Yes, that was the link. For him it was a fast day, the third of his unavoidable fasting days. The stream of wage-earners tramping to their work steadily increased. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.