He had not searched very long or very wide, or with any eager desire to discover Him, if indeed there should be a God that hid Himself.

His genial nature delighted in sympathy, and he sought it even in that whose perfect operation, is the destruction of all sympathy.

Who does not know the pleasure of that moment of nascent communion, when argument or expostulation has begun to tell, conviction begins to dawn, and the first faint thrill of response is felt?
But the joy may be either of two very different kinds--delight in victory and the personal success of persuasion, or the ecstasy of the shared vision of truth, in which contact souls come nearer to each other than any closest familiarity can effect.

Such a nearness can be brought about by no negation however genuine, or however evil may be the thing denied.
Sympathy, then, such as he desired, Faber was now bent on finding, or bringing about in Juliet Meredith.

He would fain get nearer to her.
Something pushed, something drew him toward the lovely phenomenon into which had flowered invisible Nature's bud of shapeless protoplasm.