The Project Gutenberg eBook of Phantastes, by George MacDonald

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Phantastes

A Faerie Romance for Men and best castle playsets for 7 year olds under 100 dollarsWomen

by George MacDonald

A new Edition, with thirty-three new Illustrations by Arthur Hughes;
edited by Greville MacDonald (Illustrations not available)

“In good sooth, my masters, this is no door.

Yet is it a little window, that looketh upon a great world.”

Contents

PREFACE

For offering this new edition of my father’s Phantastes, my reasons arethree. The first is to rescue the work from an edition illustrated without theauthor’s sanction, and so unsuitably that all lovers of the book musthave experienced some real grief in turning its pages. With the copyright Isecured also the whole of that edition and turned it into pulp.

My second reason is to pay a small tribute to my father by way of personalgratitude for this, his first prose work, which was published nearly fiftyyears ago. Though unknown to many lovers of his greater writings, none of thesehas exceeded it in imaginative insight and power of expression. To me it ringswith the dominant chord of his life’s purpose and work.

My third reason is that wider knowledge and love of the book should be madepossible. To this end I have been most happy in the help of my father’sold friend, who has illustrated the book. I know of no other living artist whois capable of portraying the spirit of Phantastes; and every reader of thisedition will, I believe, feel that the illustrations are a part of the romance,and will gain through them some perception of the brotherhood between GeorgeMacDonald and Arthur Hughes.

GREVILLE MACDONALD.

September 1905.

PHANTASTES
A FAERIE ROMANCE

“Phantastes from ‘their fount’ all shapes deriving,
In new habiliments can quickly dight.”
FLETCHER’S Purple Island

Es lassen sich Erzählungen ohne Zusammenhang, jedoch mit Association, wieTräume, denken; Gedichte, die bloss wohlklingend und voll schöner Worte sind,aber auch ohne allen Sinn und Zusammenhang, höchstens einzelne Strophenverständlich, wie Bruchstücke aus den verschiedenartigsten Dingen. Diese wahrePoesie kann höchstens einen allegorischen Sinn in Grossen, und eine indirecteWirkung, wie Musik, haben. Darum ist die Natur so rein poetisch, wie die Stubeeines Zauberers, eines Physikers, eine Kinderstube, eine Polter- undVorrathskammer.

Ein Märchen ist wie ein Traumbild ohne Zusammenhang. Ein Ensemble wunderbarerDinge und Begebenheiten, z. B. eine musikalische Phantasie, die harmonischenFolgen einer Aeolsharfe, die Natur selbst...

In einem echten Märchen muss alles wunderbar, geheimnissvoll undzusammenhängend sein; alles belebt, jeder auf eine andere Art. Die ganze Naturmuss wunderlich mit der ganzen Geisterwelt gemischt sein; hier tritt die Zeitder Anarchie, der Gesetzlosigkeit, Freiheit, der Naturstand der Natur, die Zeitvon der Welt ein . . . Die Welt des Märchens ist die, der Welt der Wahrheitdurchaus entgegengesetzte, und eben darum ihr so durchaus ähnlich, wie dasChaos der vollendeten Schöpfung ähnlich ist.--NOVALIS.

CHAPTER I

“A spirit . . .
. . . . . .
The undulating woods, and silent well,
And rippling rivulet, and evening gloom,
Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming,
Held commune with him; as if he and it
Were all that was.”
          SHELLEY’SAlastor.

I awoke one morning with the usual perplexity of mind which accompanies thereturn of consciousness. As I lay and looked through the eastern window of myroom, a faint streak of peach-colour, dividing a cloud that just rose above thelow swell of the horizon, announced the approach of the sun. As my thoughts,which a deep and apparently dreamless sleep had dissolved, began again toassume crystalline forms, the strange events of the foregoing night presentedthemselves anew to my wondering consciousness. The day before had been myone-and-twentieth birthday. Among other ceremonies investing me with my legalrights, the keys of an old secretary, in which my father had kept his privatepapers, had been delivered up to me. As soon as I was left alone, I orderedlights in the chamber where the secretary stood, the first lights that had beenthere for many a year; for, since my father’s death, the room had beenleft undisturbed. But, as if the darkness had been too long an inmate to beeasily expelled, and had dyed with blackness the walls to which, bat-like, ithad clung, these tapers served but ill to light up the gloomy hangings, andseemed to throw yet darker shadows into the hollows of the deep-wroughtcornice. All the further portions of the room lay shrouded in a mystery whosedeepest folds were gathered around the dark oak cabinet which I now approachedwith a strange mingling of reverence and curiosity. Perhaps, like a geologist,I was about to turn up to the light some of the buried strata of the humanworld, with its fossil remains charred by passion and petrified by tears.Perhaps I was to learn how my father, whose personal history was unknown to me,had woven his web of story; how he had found the world, and how the world hadleft him. Perhaps I was to find only the records of lands and moneys, howgotten and how secured; coming down from strange men, and through troubloustimes, to me, who knew little or nothing of them all. To solve my speculations,and to dispel the awe which was fast gathering around me as if the dead weredrawing near, I approached the secretary; and having found the key that fittedthe upper portion, I opened it with some difficulty, drew near it a heavyhigh-backed chair, and sat down before a multitude of little drawers and slidesand pigeon-holes. But the door of a little cupboard in the centre especiallyattracted my interest, as if there lay the secret of this long-hidden world.Its key I found.

One of the rusty hinges cracked and broke as I opened the door: it revealed anumber of small pigeon-holes. These, however, being but shallow compared withthe depth of those around the little cupboard, the outer ones reaching to theback of the desk, I concluded that there must be some accessible space behind;and found, indeed, that they were formed in a separate framework, whichadmitted of the whole being pulled out in one piece. Behind, I found a sort offlexible portcullis of small bars of wood laid close together horizontally.After long search, and trying many ways to move it, I discovered at last ascarcely projecting point of steel on one side. I pressed this repeatedly andhard with the point of an old tool that was lying near, till at length ityielded inwards; and the little slide, flying up suddenly, disclosed achamber—empty, except that in one corner lay a little heap of witheredrose-leaves, whose long-lived scent had long since departed; and, in another, asmall packet of papers, tied with a bit of ribbon, whose colour had gone withthe rose-scent. Almost fearing to touch them, they witnessed so mutely to thelaw of oblivion, I leaned back in my chair, and regarded them for a moment;when suddenly there stood on the threshold of the little chamber, as though shehad just emerged from its depth, a tiny woman-form, as perfect in shape as ifshe had been a small Greek statuette roused to life and motion. Her dress wasof a kind that could never grow old-fashioned, because it was simply natural: arobe plaited in a band around the neck, and confined by a belt about the waist,descended to her feet. It was only afterwards, however, that I took notice ofher dress, although my surprise was by no means of so overpowering a degree assuch an apparition might naturally be expected to excite. Seeing, however, as Isuppose, some astonishment in my countenance, she came forward within a yard ofme, and said, in a voice that strangely recalled a sensation of twilight, andreedy river banks, and a low wind, even in this deathly room:—

“Anodos, you never saw such a little creature before, did you?”

“No,” said I; “and indeed I hardly believe I do now.”

“Ah! that is always the way with you men; you believe nothing the firsttime; and it is foolish enough to let mere repetition convince you of what youconsider in itself unbelievable. I am not going to argue with you, however, butto grant you a wish.”

Here I could not help interrupting her with the foolish speech, of which,however, I had no cause to repent—

“How can such a very little creature as you grant or refuseanything?”

“Is that all the philosophy you have gained in one-and-twentyyears?” said she. “Form is much, but size is nothing. It is a merematter of relation. I suppose your six-foot lordship does not feel altogetherinsignificant, though to others you do look small beside your old Uncle Ralph,who rises above you a great half-foot at least. But size is of so littleconsequence with old me, that I may as well accommodate myself to your foolishprejudices.”

So saying, she leapt from the desk upon the floor, where she stood a tall,gracious lady, with pale face and large blue eyes. Her dark hair flowed behind,wavy but uncurled, down to her waist, and against it her form stood clear inits robe of white.

“Now,” said she, “you will believe me.”

Overcome with the presence of a beauty which I could now perceive, and drawntowards her by an attraction irresistible as incomprehensible, I suppose Istretched out my arms towards her, for she drew back a step or two, andsaid—

“Foolish boy, if you could touch me, I should hurt you. Besides, I wastwo hundred and thirty-seven years old, last Midsummer eve; and a man must notfall in love with his grandmother, you know.”

“But you are not my grandmother,” said I.

“How do you know that?” she retorted. “I dare say you knowsomething of your great-grandfathers a good deal further back than that; butyou know very little about your great-grandmothers on either side. Now, to thepoint. Your little sister was reading a fairy-tale to you last night.”

“She was.”

“When she had finished, she said, as she closed the book, ‘Is therea fairy-country, brother?’ You replied with a sigh, ‘I supposethere is, if one could find the way into it.’”

“I did; but I meant something quite different from what you seem tothink.”

“Never mind what I seem to think. You shall find the way into Fairy Landto-morrow. Now look in my eyes.”

Eagerly I did so. They filled me with an unknown longing. I remembered somehowthat my mother died when I was a baby. I looked deeper and deeper, till theyspread around me like seas, and I sank in their waters. I forgot all the rest,till I found myself at the window, whose gloomy curtains were withdrawn, andwhere I stood gazing on a whole heaven of stars, small and sparkling in themoonlight. Below lay a sea, still as death and hoary in the moon, sweeping intobays and around capes and islands, away, away, I knew not whither. Alas! it wasno sea, but a low fog burnished by the moon. “Surely there is such a seasomewhere!” said I to myself. A low sweet voice beside me replied—

“In Fairy Land, Anodos.”

I turned, but saw no one. I closed the secretary, and went to my own room, andto bed.

All this I recalled as I lay with half-closed eyes. I was soon to find thetruth of the lady’s promise, that this day I should discover the roadinto Fairy Land.

CHAPTER II

“‘Where is the stream?’ cried he, with tears. ‘Seestthou not its blue waves above us?’ He looked up, and lo! the blue streamwas flowing gently over their heads.” —NOVALIS, Heinrich vonOfterdingen.

While these strange events were passing through my mind, I suddenly, as oneawakes to the consciousness that the sea has been moaning by him for hours, orthat the storm has been howling about his window all night, became aware of thesound of running water near me; and, looking out of bed, I saw that a largegreen marble basin, in which I was wont to wash, and which stood on a lowpedestal of the same material in a corner of my room, was overflowing like aspring; and that a stream of clear water was running over the carpet, all thelength of the room, finding its outlet I knew not where. And, stranger still,where this carpet, which I had myself designed to imitate a field of grass anddaisies, bordered the course of the little stream, the grass-blades and daisiesseemed to wave in a tiny breeze that followed the water’s flow; whileunder the rivulet they bent and swayed with every motion of the changefulcurrent, as if they were about to dissolve with it, and, forsaking their fixedform, become fluent as the waters.

My dressing-table was an old-fashioned piece of furniture of black oak, withdrawers all down the front. These were elaborately carved in foliage, of whichivy formed the chief part. The nearer end of this table remained just as it hadbeen, but on the further end a singular change had commenced. I happened to fixmy eye on a little cluster of ivy-leaves. The first of these was evidently thework of the carver; the next looked curious; the third was unmistakable ivy;and just beyond it a tendril of clematis had twined itself about the gilthandle of one of the drawers. Hearing next a slight motion above me, I lookedup, and saw that the branches and leaves designed upon the curtains of my bedwere slightly in motion. Not knowing what change might follow next, I thoughtit high time to get up; and, springing from the bed, my bare feet alighted upona cool green sward; and although I dressed in all haste, I found myselfcompleting my toilet under the boughs of a great tree, whose top waved in thegolden stream of the sunrise with many interchanging lights, and with shadowsof leaf and branch gliding over leaf and branch, as the cool morning wind swungit to and fro, like a sinking sea-wave.

After washing as well as I could in the clear stream, I rose and looked aroundme. The tree under which I seemed to have lain all night was one of theadvanced guard of a dense forest, towards which the rivulet ran. Faint tracesof a footpath, much overgrown with grass and moss, and with here and there apimpernel even, were discernible along the right bank. “This,”thought I, “must surely be the path into Fairy Land, which the lady oflast night promised I should so soon find.” I crossed the rivulet, andaccompanied it, keeping the footpath on its right bank, until it led me, as Iexpected, into the wood. Here I left it, without any good reason: and with avague feeling that I ought to have followed its course, I took a more southerlydirection.

CHAPTER III

“Man doth usurp all space,
Stares thee, in rock, bush, river, in the face.
Never thine eyes behold a tree;
‘Tis no sea thou seest in the sea,
‘Tis but a disguised humanity.
To avoid thy fellow, vain thy plan;
All that interests a man, is man.”
          HENRYSUTTON.

The trees, which were far apart where I entered, giving free passage to thelevel rays of the sun, closed rapidly as I advanced, so that ere long theircrowded stems barred the sunlight out, forming as it were a thick gratingbetween me and the East. I seemed to be advancing towards a second midnight. Inthe midst of the intervening twilight, however, before I entered what appearedto be the darkest portion of the forest, I saw a country maiden coming towardsme from its very depths. She did not seem to observe me, for she was apparentlyintent upon a bunch of wild flowers which she carried in her hand. I couldhardly see her face; for, though she came direct towards me, she never lookedup. But when we met, instead of passing, she turned and walked alongside of mefor a few yards, still keeping her face downwards, and busied with her flowers.She spoke rapidly, however, all the time, in a low tone, as if talking toherself, but evidently addressing the purport of her words to me.

She seemed afraid of being observed by some lurking foe. “Trust theOak,” said she; “trust the Oak, and the Elm, and the great Beech.Take care of the Birch, for though she is honest, she is too young not to bechangeable. But shun the Ash and the Alder; for the Ash is an ogre,—youwill know him by his thick fingers; and the Alder will smother you with her webof hair, if you let her near you at night.” All this was uttered withoutpause or alteration of tone. Then she turned suddenly and left me, walkingstill with the same unchanging gait. I could not conjecture what she meant, butsatisfied myself with thinking that it would be time enough to find out hermeaning when there was need to make use of her warning, and that the occasionwould reveal the admonition. I concluded from the flowers that she carried,that the forest could not be everywhere so dense as it appeared from where Iwas now walking; and I was right in this conclusion. For soon I came to a moreopen part, and by-and-by crossed a wide grassy glade, on which were severalcircles of brighter green. But even here I was struck with the utter stillness.No bird sang. No insect hummed. Not a living creature crossed my way. Yetsomehow the whole environment seemed only asleep, and to wear even in sleep anair of expectation. The trees seemed all to have an expression of consciousmystery, as if they said to themselves, “we could, an’ if wewould.” They had all a meaning look about them. Then I remembered thatnight is the fairies’ day, and the moon their sun; and Ithought—Everything sleeps and dreams now: when the night comes, it willbe different. At the same time I, being a man and a child of the day, felt someanxiety as to how I should fare among the elves and other children of the nightwho wake when mortals dream, and find their common life in those wondrous hoursthat flow noiselessly over the moveless death-like forms of men and women andchildren, lying strewn and parted beneath the weight of the heavy waves ofnight, which flow on and beat them down, and hold them drowned and senseless,until the ebbtide comes, and the waves sink away, back into the ocean of thedark. But I took courage and went on. Soon, however, I became again anxious,though from another cause. I had eaten nothing that day, and for an hour pasthad been feeling the want of food. So I grew afraid lest I should find nothingto meet my human necessities in this strange place; but once more I comfortedmyself with hope and went on.

Before noon, I fancied I saw a thin blue smoke rising amongst the stems oflarger trees in front of me; and soon I came to an open spot of ground in whichstood a little cottage, so built that the stems of four great trees formed itscorners, while their branches met and intertwined over its roof, heaping agreat cloud of leaves over it, up towards the heavens. I wondered at finding ahuman dwelling in this neighbourhood; and yet it did not look altogether human,though sufficiently so to encourage me to expect to find some sort of food.Seeing no door, I went round to the other side, and there I found one, wideopen. A woman sat beside it, preparing some vegetables for dinner. This washomely and comforting. As I came near, she looked up, and seeing me, showed nosurprise, but bent her head again over her work, and said in a low tone:

“Did you see my daughter?”

“I believe I did,” said I. “Can you give me something to eat,for I am very hungry?” “With pleasure,” she replied, in thesame tone; “but do not say anything more, till you come into the house,for the Ash is watching us.”

Having said this, she rose and led the way into the cottage; which, I now saw,was built of the stems of small trees set closely together, and was furnishedwith rough chairs and tables, from which even the bark had not been removed. Assoon as she had shut the door and set a chair—

“You have fairy blood in you,” said she, looking hard at me.

“How do you know that?”

“You could not have got so far into this wood if it were not so; and I amtrying to find out some trace of it in your countenance. I think I seeit.”

“What do you see?”

“Oh, never mind: I may be mistaken in that.”

“But how then do you come to live here?”

“Because I too have fairy blood in me.”

Here I, in my turn, looked hard at her, and thought I could perceive,notwithstanding the coarseness of her features, and especially the heaviness ofher eyebrows, a something unusual—I could hardly call it grace, and yetit was an expression that strangely contrasted with the form of her features. Inoticed too that her hands were delicately formed, though brown with work andexposure.

“I should be ill,” she continued, “if I did not live on theborders of the fairies’ country, and now and then eat of their food. AndI see by your eyes that you are not quite free of the same need; though, fromyour education and the activity of your mind, you have felt it less than I. Youmay be further removed too from the fairy race.”

I remembered what the lady had said about my grandmothers.

Here she placed some bread and some milk before me, with a kindly apology forthe homeliness of the fare, with which, however, I was in no humour to quarrel.I now thought it time to try to get some explanation of the strange words bothof her daughter and herself.

“What did you mean by speaking so about the Ash?”

She rose and looked out of the little window. My eyes followed her; but as thewindow was too small to allow anything to be seen from where I was sitting, Irose and looked over her shoulder. I had just time to see, across the openspace, on the edge of the denser forest, a single large ash-tree, whose foliageshowed bluish, amidst the truer green of the other trees around it; when shepushed me back with an expression of impatience and terror, and then almostshut out the light from the window by setting up a large old book in it.

“In general,” said she, recovering her composure, “there isno danger in the daytime, for then he is sound asleep; but there is somethingunusual going on in the woods; there must be some solemnity among the fairiesto-night, for all the trees are restless, and although they cannot come awake,they see and hear in their sleep.”

“But what danger is to be dreaded from him?”

Instead of answering the question, she went again to the window and looked out,saying she feared the fairies would be interrupted by foul weather, for a stormwas brewing in the west.

“And the sooner it grows dark, the sooner the Ash will be awake,”added she.

I asked her how she knew that there was any unusual excitement in the woods.She replied—

“Besides the look of the trees, the dog there is unhappy; and the eyesand ears of the white rabbit are redder than usual, and he frisks about as ifhe expected some fun. If the cat were at home, she would have her back up; forthe young fairies pull the sparks out of her tail with bramble thorns, and sheknows when they are coming. So do I, in another way.”

At this instant, a grey cat rushed in like a demon, and disappeared in a holein the wall.

“There, I told you!” said the woman.

“But what of the ash-tree?” said I, returning once more to thesubject. Here, however, the young woman, whom I had met in the morning,entered. A smile passed between the mother and daughter; and then the latterbegan to help her mother in little household duties.

“I should like to stay here till the evening,” I said; “andthen go on my journey, if you will allow me.”

“You are welcome to do as you please; only it might be better to stay allnight, than risk the dangers of the wood then. Where are you going?”

“Nay, that I do not know,” I replied, “but I wish to see allthat is to be seen, and therefore I should like to start just atsundown.”

“You are a bold youth, if you have any idea of what you are daring; but arash one, if you know nothing about it; and, excuse me, you do not seem verywell informed about the country and its manners. However, no one comes here butfor some reason, either known to himself or to those who have charge of him; soyou shall do just as you wish.”

Accordingly I sat down, and feeling rather tired, and disinclined for furthertalk, I asked leave to look at the old book which still screened the window.The woman brought it to me directly, but not before taking another look towardsthe forest, and then drawing a white blind over the window. I sat down oppositeto it by the table, on which I laid the great old volume, and read. Itcontained many wondrous tales of Fairy Land, and olden times, and the Knightsof King Arthur’s table. I read on and on, till the shades of theafternoon began to deepen; for in the midst of the forest it gloomed earlierthan in the open country. At length I came to this passage—

“Here it chanced, that upon their quest, Sir Galahad and Sir Percivalerencountered in the depths of a great forest. Now, Sir Galahad was dight all inharness of silver, clear and shining; the which is a delight to look upon, butfull hasty to tarnish, and withouten the labour of a ready squire, uneath to bekept fair and clean. And yet withouten squire or page, Sir Galahad’sarmour shone like the moon. And he rode a great white mare, whose bases andother housings were black, but all besprent with fair lilys of silver sheen.Whereas Sir Percivale bestrode a red horse, with a tawny mane and tail; whosetrappings were all to-smirched with mud and mire; and his armour was wondrousrosty to behold, ne could he by any art furbish it again; so that as the sun inhis going down shone twixt the bare trunks of the trees, full upon the knightstwain, the one did seem all shining with light, and the other all to glow withruddy fire. Now it came about in this wise. For Sir Percivale, after his escapefrom the demon lady, whenas the cross on the handle of his sword smote him tothe heart, and he rove himself through the thigh, and escaped away, he came toa great wood; and, in nowise cured of his fault, yet bemoaning the same, thedamosel of the alder tree encountered him, right fair to see; and with her fairwords and false countenance she comforted him and beguiled him, until hefollowed her where she led him to a—-”

Here a low hurried cry from my hostess caused me to look up from the book, andI read no more.

“Look there!” she said; “look at his fingers!”

Just as I had been reading in the book, the setting sun was shining through acleft in the clouds piled up in the west; and a shadow as of a large distortedhand, with thick knobs and humps on the fingers, so that it was much wideracross the fingers than across the undivided part of the hand, passed slowlyover the little blind, and then as slowly returned in the opposite direction.

“He is almost awake, mother; and greedier than usual to-night.”

“Hush, child; you need not make him more angry with us than he is; foryou do not know how soon something may happen to oblige us to be in the forestafter nightfall.”

“But you are in the forest,” said I; “how is it that you aresafe here?”

“He dares not come nearer than he is now,” she replied; “forany of those four oaks, at the corners of our cottage, would tear him topieces; they are our friends. But he stands there and makes awful faces at ussometimes, and stretches out his long arms and fingers, and tries to kill uswith fright; for, indeed, that is his favourite way of doing. Pray, keep out ofhis way to-night.”

“Shall I be able to see these things?” said I.

“That I cannot tell yet, not knowing how much of the fairy nature thereis in you. But we shall soon see whether you can discern the fairies in mylittle garden, and that will be some guide to us.”

“Are the trees fairies too, as well as the flowers?” I asked.

“They are of the same race,” she replied; “though those youcall fairies in your country are chiefly the young children of the flowerfairies. They are very fond of having fun with the thick people, as they callyou; for, like most children, they like fun better than anything else.”

“Why do you have flowers so near you then? Do they not annoy you?”

“Oh, no, they are very amusing, with their mimicries of grown people, andmock solemnities. Sometimes they will act a whole play through before my eyes,with perfect composure and assurance, for they are not afraid of me. Only, assoon as they have done, they burst into peals of tiny laughter, as if it wassuch a joke to have been serious over anything. These I speak of, however, arethe fairies of the garden. They are more staid and educated than those of thefields and woods. Of course they have near relations amongst the wild flowers,but they patronise them, and treat them as country cousins, who know nothing oflife, and very little of manners. Now and then, however, they are compelled toenvy the grace and simplicity of the natural flowers.”

“Do they live inthe flowers?” I said.

“I cannot tell,” she replied. “There is something in it I donot understand. Sometimes they disappear altogether, even from me, though Iknow they are near. They seem to die always with the flowers they resemble, andby whose names they are called; but whether they return to life with the freshflowers, or, whether it be new flowers, new fairies, I cannot tell. They haveas many sorts of dispositions as men and women, while their moods are yet morevariable; twenty different expressions will cross their little faces in half aminute. I often amuse myself with watching them, but I have never been able tomake personal acquaintance with any of them. If I speak to one, he or she looksup in my face, as if I were not worth heeding, gives a little laugh, and runsaway.” Here the woman started, as if suddenly recollecting herself, andsaid in a low voice to her daughter, “Make haste—go and watch him,and see in what direction he goes.”

I may as well mention here, that the conclusion I arrived at from theobservations I was afterwards able to make, was, that the flowers die becausethe fairies go away; not that the fairies disappear because the flowers die.The flowers seem a sort of houses for them, or outer bodies, which they can puton or off when they please. Just as you could form some idea of the nature of aman from the kind of house he built, if he followed his own taste, so youcould, without seeing the fairies, tell what any one of them is like, bylooking at the flower till you feel that you understand it. For just what theflower says to you, would the face and form of the fairy say; only so much moreplainly as a face and human figure can express more than a flower. For thehouse or the clothes, though like the inhabitant or the wearer, cannot bewrought into an equal power of utterance. Yet you would see a strangeresemblance, almost oneness, between the flower and the fairy, which you couldnot describe, but which described itself to you. Whether all the flowers havefairies, I cannot determine, any more than I can be sure whether all men andwomen have souls.

The woman and I continued the conversation for a few minutes longer. I was muchinterested by the information she gave me, and astonished at the language inwhich she was able to convey it. It seemed that intercourse with the fairieswas no bad education in itself. But now the daughter returned with the news,that the Ash had just gone away in a south-westerly direction; and, as mycourse seemed to lie eastward, she hoped I should be in no danger of meetinghim if I departed at once. I looked out of the little window, and there stoodthe ash-tree, to my eyes the same as before; but I believed that they knewbetter than I did, and prepared to go. I pulled out my purse, but to my dismaythere was nothing in it. The woman with a smile begged me not to troublemyself, for money was not of the slightest use there; and as I might meet withpeople in my journeys whom I could not recognise to be fairies, it was well Ihad no money to offer, for nothing offended them so much.

“They would think,” she added, “that you were making game ofthem; and that is their peculiar privilege with regard to us.” So we wenttogether into the little garden which sloped down towards a lower part of thewood.

Here, to my great pleasure, all was life and bustle. There was still lightenough from the day to see a little; and the pale half-moon, halfway to thezenith, was reviving every moment. The whole garden was like a carnival, withtiny, gaily decorated forms, in groups, assemblies, processions, pairs ortrios, moving stately on, running about wildly, or sauntering hither orthither. From the cups or bells of tall flowers, as from balconies, some lookeddown on the masses below, now bursting with laughter, now grave as owls; buteven in their deepest solemnity, seeming only to be waiting for the arrival ofthe next laugh. Some were launched on a little marshy stream at the bottom, inboats chosen from the heaps of last year’s leaves that lay about, curledand withered. These soon sank with them; whereupon they swam ashore and gotothers. Those who took fresh rose-leaves for their boats floated the longest;but for these they had to fight; for the fairy of the rose-tree complainedbitterly that they were stealing her clothes, and defended her propertybravely.

“You can’t wear half you’ve got,” said some.

“Never you mind; I don’t choose you to have them: they are myproperty.”

“All for the good of the community!” said one, and ran off with agreat hollow leaf. But the rose-fairy sprang after him (what a beauty she was!only too like a drawing-room young lady), knocked him heels-over-head as heran, and recovered her great red leaf. But in the meantime twenty had hurriedoff in different directions with others just as good; and the little creaturesat down and cried, and then, in a pet, sent a perfect pink snowstorm of petalsfrom her tree, leaping from branch to branch, and stamping and shaking andpulling. At last, after another good cry, she chose the biggest she could find,and ran away laughing, to launch her boat amongst the rest.

But my attention was first and chiefly attracted by a group of fairies near thecottage, who were talking together around what seemed a last dying primrose.They talked singing, and their talk made a song, something like this:

“Sister Snowdrop died
    Before we were born.”
“She came like a bride
    In a snowy morn.”
“What’s a bride?”
    “What is snow?
“Never tried.”
    “Do not know.”

“Who told you about her?”
    “Little Primrose there
Cannot do without her.”
    “Oh, so sweetly fair!”
“Never fear,
    She will come,
Primrose dear.”
    “Is she dumb?”

“She’ll come by-and-by.”
    “You will never see her.”
“She went home to die,
    “Till the new year.”
“Snowdrop!” “‘Tis no good
    To invite her.”
“Primrose is very rude,
    “I will bite her.”

“Oh, you naughty Pocket!
    “Look, she drops her head.”
“She deserved it, Rocket,
    “And she was nearly dead.”
“To your hammock—off with you!”
    “And swing alone.”
“No one will laugh with you.”
    “No, not one.”

“Now let us moan.”
    “And cover her o’er.”
“Primrose is gone.”
    “All but the flower.”
“Here is a leaf.”
    “Lay her upon it.”
“Follow in grief.”
    “Pocket has done it.”

“Deeper, poor creature!
    Winter may come.”
“He cannot reach her—
    That is a hum.”
“She is buried, the beauty!”
    “Now she is done.”
“That was the duty.”
    “Now for the fun.”

And with a wild laugh they sprang away, most of them towards the cottage.During the latter part of the song-talk, they had formed themselves into afuneral procession, two of them bearing poor Primrose, whose death Pocket hadhastened by biting her stalk, upon one of her own great leaves. They bore hersolemnly along some distance, and then buried her under a tree. Although I sayherI saw nothing but the withered primrose-flower on its long stalk.Pocket, who had been expelled from the company by common consent, went sulkilyaway towards her hammock, for she was the fairy of the calceolaria, and lookedrather wicked. When she reached its stem, she stopped and looked round. I couldnot help speaking to her, for I stood near her. I said, “Pocket, howcould you be so naughty?”

“I am never naughty,” she said, half-crossly, half-defiantly;“only if you come near my hammock, I will bite you, and then you will goaway.”

“Why did you bite poor Primrose?”

“Because she said we should never see Snowdrop; as if we were not goodenough to look at her, and she was, the proud thing!—served herright!”

“Oh, Pocket, Pocket,” said I; but by this time the party which hadgone towards the house, rushed out again, shouting and screaming with laughter.Half of them were on the cat’s back, and half held on by her fur andtail, or ran beside her; till, more coming to their help, the furious cat washeld fast; and they proceeded to pick the sparks out of her with thorns andpins, which they handled like harpoons. Indeed, there were more instruments atwork about her than there could have been sparks in her. One little fellow whoheld on hard by the tip of the tail, with his feet planted on the ground at anangle of forty-five degrees, helping to keep her fast, administered acontinuous flow of admonitions to Pussy.

“Now, Pussy, be patient. You know quite well it is all for your good. Youcannot be comfortable with all those sparks in you; and, indeed, I amcharitably disposed to believe” (here he became very pompous) “thatthey are the cause of all your bad temper; so we must have them all out, everyone; else we shall be reduced to the painful necessity of cutting your claws,and pulling out your eye-teeth. Quiet! Pussy, quiet!”

But with a perfect hurricane of feline curses, the poor animal broke loose, anddashed across the garden and through the hedge, faster than even the fairiescould follow. “Never mind, never mind, we shall find her again; and bythat time she will have laid in a fresh stock of sparks. Hooray!” And offthey set, after some new mischief.

But I will not linger to enlarge on the amusing display of these frolicsomecreatures. Their manners and habits are now so well known to the world, havingbeen so often described by eyewitnesses, that it would be only indulgingself-conceit, to add my account in full to the rest. I cannot help wishing,however, that my readers could see them for themselves. Especially do I desirethat they should see the fairy of the daisy; a little, chubby, round-eyedchild, with such innocent trust in his look! Even the most mischievous of thefairies would not tease him, although he did not belong to their set at all,but was quite a little country bumpkin. He wandered about alone, and looked ateverything, with his hands in his little pockets, and a white night-cap on, thedarling! He was not so beautiful as many other wild flowers I saw afterwards,but so dear and loving in his looks and little confident ways.

CHAPTER IV

“When bale is att hyest, boote is nyest.”
Ballad of Sir Aldingar.

By this time, my hostess was quite anxious that I should be gone. So, with warmthanks for their hospitality, I took my leave, and went my way through thelittle garden towards the forest. Some of the garden flowers had wandered intothe wood, and were growing here and there along the path, but the trees soonbecame too thick and shadowy for them. I particularly noticed some tall lilies,which grew on both sides of the way, with large dazzlingly white flowers, setoff by the universal green. It was now dark enough for me to see that everyflower was shining with a light of its own. Indeed it was by this light that Isaw them, an internal, peculiar light, proceeding from each, and not reflectedfrom a common source of light as in the daytime. This light sufficed only forthe plant itself, and was not strong enough to cast any but the faintestshadows around it, or to illuminate any of the neighbouring objects with otherthan the faintest tinge of its own individual hue. From the lilies abovementioned, from the campanulas, from the foxgloves, and every bell-shapedflower, curious little figures shot up their heads, peeped at me, and drewback. They seemed to inhabit them, as snails their shells; but I was sure someof them were intruders, and belonged to the gnomes or goblin-fairies, whoinhabit the ground and earthy creeping plants. From the cups of Arum lilies,creatures with great heads and grotesque faces shot up like Jack-in-the-box,and made grimaces at me; or rose slowly and slily over the edge of the cup, andspouted water at me, slipping suddenly back, like those little soldier-crabsthat inhabit the shells of sea-snails. Passing a row of tall thistles, I sawthem crowded with little faces, which peeped every one from behind its flower,and drew back as quickly; and I heard them saying to each other, evidentlyintending me to hear, but the speaker always hiding behind his tuft, when Ilooked in his direction, “Look at him! Look at him! He has begun a storywithout a beginning, and it will never have any end. He! he! he! Look athim!”

But as I went further into the wood, these sights and sounds became fewer,giving way to others of a different character. A little forest of wildhyacinths was alive with exquisite creatures, who stood nearly motionless, withdrooping necks, holding each by the stem of her flower, and swaying gently withit, whenever a low breath of wind swung the crowded floral belfry. In likemanner, though differing of course in form and meaning, stood a group ofharebells, like little angels waiting, ready, till they were wanted to go onsome yet unknown message. In darker nooks, by the mossy roots of the trees, orin little tufts of grass, each dwelling in a globe of its own green light,weaving a network of grass and its shadows, glowed the glowworms.

They were just like the glowworms of our own land, for they are fairieseverywhere; worms in the day, and glowworms at night, when their own canappear, and they can be themselves to others as well as themselves. But theyhad their enemies here. For I saw great strong-armed beetles, hurrying aboutwith most unwieldy haste, awkward as elephant-calves, looking apparently forglowworms; for the moment a beetle espied one, through what to it was a forestof grass, or an underwood of moss, it pounced upon it, and bore it away, inspite of its feeble resistance. Wondering what their object could be, I watchedone of the beetles, and then I discovered a thing I could not account for. Butit is no use trying to account for things in Fairy Land; and one who travelsthere soon learns to forget the very idea of doing so, and takes everything asit comes; like a child, who, being in a chronic condition of wonder, issurprised at nothing. What I saw was this. Everywhere, here and there over theground, lay little, dark-looking lumps of something more like earth thananything else, and about the size of a chestnut. The beetles hunted in couplesfor these; and having found one, one of them stayed to watch it, while theother hurried to find a glowworm. By signals, I presume, between them, thelatter soon found his companion again: they then took the glowworm and held itsluminous tail to the dark earthly pellet; when lo, it shot up into the air likea sky-rocket, seldom, however, reaching the height of the highest tree. Justlike a rocket too, it burst in the air, and fell in a shower of the mostgorgeously coloured sparks of every variety of hue; golden and red, and purpleand green, and blue and rosy fires crossed and inter-crossed each other,beneath the shadowy heads, and between the columnar stems of the forest trees.They never used the same glowworm twice, I observed; but let him go, apparentlyuninjured by the use they had made of him.

In other parts, the whole of the immediately surrounding foliage wasilluminated by the interwoven dances in the air of splendidly colouredfire-flies, which sped hither and thither, turned, twisted, crossed, andrecrossed, entwining every complexity of intervolved motion. Here and there,whole mighty trees glowed with an emitted phosphorescent light. You could tracethe very course of the great roots in the earth by the faint light that camethrough; and every twig, and every vein on every leaf was a streak of palefire.

All this time, as I went through the wood, I was haunted with the feeling thatother shapes, more like my own size and mien, were moving about at a littledistance on all sides of me. But as yet I could discern none of them, althoughthe moon was high enough to send a great many of her rays down between thetrees, and these rays were unusually bright, and sight-giving, notwithstandingshe was only a half-moon. I constantly imagined, however, that forms werevisible in all directions except that to which my gaze was turned; and thatthey only became invisible, or resolved themselves into other woodland shapes,the moment my looks were directed towards them. However this may have been,except for this feeling of presence, the woods seemed utterly bare of anythinglike human companionship, although my glance often fell on some object which Ifancied to be a human form; for I soon found that I was quite deceived; as, themoment I fixed my regard on it, it showed plainly that it was a bush, or atree, or a rock.

Soon a vague sense of discomfort possessed me. With variations of relief, thisgradually increased; as if some evil thing were wandering about in myneighbourhood, sometimes nearer and sometimes further off, but stillapproaching. The feeling continued and deepened, until all my pleasure in theshows of various kinds that everywhere betokened the presence of the merryfairies vanished by degrees, and left me full of anxiety and fear, which I wasunable to associate with any definite object whatever. At length the thoughtcrossed my mind with horror: “Can it be possible that the Ash is lookingfor me? or that, in his nightly wanderings, his path is gradually vergingtowards mine?” I comforted myself, however, by remembering that he hadstarted quite in another direction; one that would lead him, if he kept it, farapart from me; especially as, for the last two or three hours, I had beendiligently journeying eastward. I kept on my way, therefore, striving by directeffort of the will against the encroaching fear; and to this end occupying mymind, as much as I could, with other thoughts. I was so far successful that,although I was conscious, if I yielded for a moment, I should be almostoverwhelmed with horror, I was yet able to walk right on for an hour or more.What I feared I could not tell. Indeed, I was left in a state of the vaguestuncertainty as regarded the nature of my enemy, and knew not the mode or objectof his attacks; for, somehow or other, none of my questions had succeeded indrawing a definite answer from the dame in the cottage. How then to defendmyself I knew not; nor even by what sign I might with certainty recognise thepresence of my foe; for as yet this vague though powerful fear was all theindication of danger I had. To add to my distress, the clouds in the west hadrisen nearly to the top of the skies, and they and the moon were travellingslowly towards each other. Indeed, some of their advanced guard had already mether, and she had begun to wade through a filmy vapour that gradually deepened.

At length she was for a moment almost entirely obscured. When she shone outagain, with a brilliancy increased by the contrast, I saw plainly on the pathbefore me—from around which at this spot the trees receded, leaving asmall space of green sward—the shadow of a large hand, with knotty jointsand protuberances here and there. Especially I remarked, even in the midst ofmy fear, the bulbous points of the fingers. I looked hurriedly all around, butcould see nothing from which such a shadow should fall. Now, however, that Ihad a direction, however undetermined, in which to project my apprehension, thevery sense of danger and need of action overcame that stifling which is theworst property of fear. I reflected in a moment, that if this were indeed ashadow, it was useless to look for the object that cast it in any otherdirection than between the shadow and the moon. I looked, and peered, andintensified my vision, all to no purpose. I could see nothing of that kind, noteven an ash-tree in the neighbourhood. Still the shadow remained; not steady,but moving to and fro, and once I saw the fingers close, and grind themselvesclose, like the claws of a wild animal, as if in uncontrollable longing forsome anticipated prey. There seemed but one mode left of discovering thesubstance of this shadow. I went forward boldly, though with an inward shudderwhich I would not heed, to the spot where the shadow lay, threw myself on theground, laid my head within the form of the hand, and turned my eyes towardsthe moon. Good heavens! what did I see? I wonder that ever I arose, and thatthe very shadow of the hand did not hold me where I lay until fear had frozenmy brain. I saw the strangest figure; vague, shadowy, almost transparent, inthe central parts, and gradually deepening in substance towards the outside,until it ended in extremities capable of casting such a shadow as fell from thehand, through the awful fingers of which I now saw the moon. The hand wasuplifted in the attitude of a paw about to strike its prey. But the face, whichthrobbed with fluctuating and pulsatory visibility—not from changes inthe light it reflected, but from changes in its own conditions of reflectingpower, the alterations being from within, not from without—it washorrible. I do not know how to describe it. It caused a new sensation. Just asone cannot translate a horrible odour, or a ghastly pain, or a fearful sound,into words, so I cannot describe this new form of awful hideousness. I can onlytry to describe something that is not it, but seems somewhat parallel to it; orat least is suggested by it. It reminded me of what I had heard of vampires;for the face resembled that of a corpse more than anything else I can think of;especially when I can conceive such a face in motion, but not suggesting anylife as the source of the motion. The features were rather handsome thanotherwise, except the mouth, which had scarcely a curve in it. The lips were ofequal thickness; but the thickness was not at all remarkable, even althoughthey looked slightly swollen. They seemed fixedly open, but were not wideapart. Of course I did not remarkthese lineaments at the time: I wastoo horrified for that. I noted them afterwards, when the form returned on myinward sight with a vividness too intense to admit of my doubting the accuracyof the reflex. But the most awful of the features were the eyes. These werealive, yet not with life.

They seemed lighted up with an infinite greed. A gnawing voracity, whichdevoured the devourer, seemed to be the indwelling and propelling power of thewhole ghostly apparition. I lay for a few moments simply imbruted with terror;when another cloud, obscuring the moon, delivered me from the immediatelyparalysing effects of the presence to the vision of the object of horror, whileit added the force of imagination to the power of fear within me; inasmuch as,knowing far worse cause for apprehension than before, I remained equallyignorant from what I had to defend myself, or how to take any precautions: hemight be upon me in the darkness any moment. I sprang to my feet, and sped Iknew not whither, only away from the spectre. I thought no longer of the path,and often narrowly escaped dashing myself against a tree, in my headlong flightof fear.

Great drops of rain began to patter on the leaves. Thunder began to mutter,then growl in the distance. I ran on. The rain fell heavier. At length thethick leaves could hold it up no longer; and, like a second firmament, theypoured their torrents on the earth. I was soon drenched, but that was nothing.I came to a small swollen stream that rushed through the woods. I had a vaguehope that if I crossed this stream, I should be in safety from my pursuer; butI soon found that my hope was as false as it was vague. I dashed across thestream, ascended a rising ground, and reached a more open space, where stoodonly great trees. Through them I directed my way, holding eastward as nearly asI could guess, but not at all certain that I was not moving in an oppositedirection. My mind was just reviving a little from its extreme terror, when,suddenly, a flash of lightning, or rather a cataract of successive flashes,behind me, seemed to throw on the ground in front of me, but far more faintlythan before, from the extent of the source of the light, the shadow of the samehorrible hand. I sprang forward, stung to yet wilder speed; but had not runmany steps before my foot slipped, and, vainly attempting to recover myself, Ifell at the foot of one of the large trees. Half-stunned, I yet raised myself,and almost involuntarily looked back. All I saw was the hand within three feetof my face. But, at the same moment, I felt two large soft arms thrown round mefrom behind; and a voice like a woman’s said: “Do not fear thegoblin; he dares not hurt you now.” With that, the hand was suddenlywithdrawn as from a fire, and disappeared in the darkness and the rain.Overcome with the mingling of terror and joy, I lay for some time almostinsensible. The first thing I remember is the sound of a voice above me, fulland low, and strangely reminding me of the sound of a gentle wind amidst theleaves of a great tree. It murmured over and over again: “I may love him,I may love him; for he is a man, and I am only a beech-tree.” I found Iwas seated on the ground, leaning against a human form, and supported still bythe arms around me, which I knew to be those of a woman who must be ratherabove the human size, and largely proportioned. I turned my head, but withoutmoving otherwise, for I feared lest the arms should untwine themselves; andclear, somewhat mournful eyes met mine. At least that is how they impressed me;but I could see very little of colour or outline as we sat in the dark andrainy shadow of the tree. The face seemed very lovely, and solemn from itsstillness; with the aspect of one who is quite content, but waiting forsomething. I saw my conjecture from her arms was correct: she was above thehuman scale throughout, but not greatly.

“Why do you call yourself a beech-tree?” I said.

“Because I am one,” she replied, in the same low, musical,murmuring voice.

“You are a woman,” I returned.

“Do you think so? Am I very like a woman then?”

“You are a very beautiful woman. Is it possible you should not knowit?”

“I am very glad you think so. I fancy I feel like a woman sometimes. I doso to-night—and always when the rain drips from my hair. For there is anold prophecy in our woods that one day we shall all be men and women like you.Do you know anything about it in your region? Shall I be very happy when I am awoman? I fear not, for it is always in nights like these that I feel like one.But I long to be a woman for all that.”

I had let her talk on, for her voice was like a solution of all musical sounds.I now told her that I could hardly say whether women were happy or not. I knewone who had not been happy; and for my part, I had often longed for Fairy Land,as she now longed for the world of men. But then neither of us had lived long,and perhaps people grew happier as they grew older. Only I doubted it.

I could not help sighing. She felt the sigh, for her arms were still round me.She asked me how old I was.

“Twenty-one,” said I.

“Why, you baby!” said she, and kissed me with the sweetest kiss ofwinds and odours. There was a cool faithfulness in the kiss that revived myheart wonderfully. I felt that I feared the dreadful Ash no more.

“What did the horrible Ash want with me?” I said.

“I am not quite sure, but I think he wants to bury you at the foot of histree. But he shall not touch you, my child.”

“Are all the ash-trees as dreadful as he?”

“Oh, no. They are all disagreeable selfish creatures—(what horridmen they will make, if it be true!)—but this one has a hole in his heartthat nobody knows of but one or two; and he is always trying to fill it up, buthe cannot. That must be what he wanted you for. I wonder if he will ever be aman. If he is, I hope they will kill him.”

“How kind of you to save me from him!”

“I will take care that he shall not come near you again. But there aresome in the wood more like me, from whom, alas! I cannot protect you. Only ifyou see any of them very beautiful, try to walk round them.”

“What then?”

“I cannot tell you more. But now I must tie some of my hair about you,and then the Ash will not touch you. Here, cut some off. You men have strangecutting things about you.”

She shook her long hair loose over me, never moving her arms.

“I cannot cut your beautiful hair. It would be a shame.”

“Not cut my hair! It will have grown long enough before any is wantedagain in this wild forest. Perhaps it may never be of any use again—nottill I am a woman.” And she sighed.

As gently as I could, I cut with a knife a long tress of flowing, dark hair,she hanging her beautiful head over me. When I had finished, she shuddered andbreathed deep, as one does when an acute pain, steadfastly endured without signof suffering, is at length relaxed. She then took the hair and tied it roundme, singing a strange, sweet song, which I could not understand, but which leftin me a feeling like this—

“I saw thee ne’er before;
I see thee never more;
But love, and help, and pain, beautiful one,
Have made thee mine, till all my years are done.”

I cannot put more of it into words. She closed her arms about me again, andwent on singing. The rain in the leaves, and a light wind that had arisen, kepther song company. I was wrapt in a trance of still delight. It told me thesecret of the woods, and the flowers, and the birds. At one time I felt as if Iwas wandering in childhood through sunny spring forests, over carpets ofprimroses, anemones, and little white starry things—I had almost saidcreatures, and finding new wonderful flowers at every turn. At another, I layhalf dreaming in the hot summer noon, with a book of old tales beside me,beneath a great beech; or, in autumn, grew sad because I trod on the leavesthat had sheltered me, and received their last blessing in the sweet odours ofdecay; or, in a winter evening, frozen still, looked up, as I went home to awarm fireside, through the netted boughs and twigs to the cold, snowy moon,with her opal zone around her. At last I had fallen asleep; for I know nothingmore that passed till I found myself lying under a superb beech-tree, in theclear light of the morning, just before sunrise. Around me was a girdle offresh beech-leaves. Alas! I brought nothing with me out of Fairy Land, butmemories—memories. The great boughs of the beech hung drooping around me.At my head rose its smooth stem, with its great sweeps of curving surface thatswelled like undeveloped limbs. The leaves and branches above kept on the songwhich had sung me asleep; only now, to my mind, it sounded like a farewell anda speedwell. I sat a long time, unwilling to go; but my unfinished story urgedme on. I must act and wander. With the sun well risen, I rose, and put my armsas far as they would reach around the beech-tree, and kissed it, and saidgood-bye. A trembling went through the leaves; a few of the last drops of thenight’s rain fell from off them at my feet; and as I walked slowly away,I seemed to hear in a whisper once more the words: “I may love him, I maylove him; for he is a man, and I am only a beech-tree.”

CHAPTER V

“And she was smooth and full, as if one gush
Of life had washed her, or as if a sleep
Lay on her eyelid, easier to sweep
Than bee from daisy.”
          BEDDOES’ Pygmalion.

“Sche was as whyt as lylye yn May,
Or snow that sneweth yn wynterys day.”
          Romance of Sir Launfal.

I walked on, in the fresh morning air, as if new-born. The only thing thatdamped my pleasure was a cloud of something between sorrow and delight thatcrossed my mind with the frequently returning thought of my last night’shostess. “But then,” thought I, “if she is sorry, I could nothelp it; and she has all the pleasures she ever had. Such a day as this issurely a joy to her, as much at least as to me. And her life will perhaps bethe richer, for holding now within it the memory of what came, but could notstay. And if ever she is a woman, who knows but we may meet somewhere? there isplenty of room for meeting in the universe.” Comforting myself thus, yetwith a vague compunction, as if I ought not to have left her, I went on. Therewas little to distinguish the woods to-day from those of my own land; exceptthat all the wild things, rabbits, birds, squirrels, mice, and the numberlessother inhabitants, were very tame; that is, they did not run away from me, butgazed at me as I passed, frequently coming nearer, as if to examine me moreclosely. Whether this came from utter ignorance, or from familiarity with thehuman appearance of beings who never hurt them, I could not tell. As I stoodonce, looking up to the splendid flower of a parasite, which hung from thebranch of a tree over my head, a large white rabbit cantered slowly up, put oneof its little feet on one of mine, and looked up at me with its red eyes, justas I had been looking up at the flower above me. I stooped and stroked it; butwhen I attempted to lift it, it banged the ground with its hind feet andscampered off at a great rate, turning, however, to look at me several timesbefore I lost sight of it. Now and then, too, a dim human figure would appearand disappear, at some distance, amongst the trees, moving like a sleep-walker.But no one ever came near me.

This day I found plenty of food in the forest—strange nuts and fruits Ihad never seen before. I hesitated to eat them; but argued that, if I couldlive on the air of Fairy Land, I could live on its food also. I found myreasoning correct, and the result was better than I had hoped; for it not onlysatisfied my hunger, but operated in such a way upon my senses that I wasbrought into far more complete relationship with the things around me. Thehuman forms appeared much more dense and defined; more tangibly visible, if Imay say so. I seemed to know better which direction to choose when any doubtarose. I began to feel in some degree what the birds meant in their songs,though I could not express it in words, any more than you can some landscapes.At times, to my surprise, I found myself listening attentively, and as if itwere no unusual thing with me, to a conversation between two squirrels ormonkeys. The subjects were not very interesting, except as associated with theindividual life and necessities of the little creatures: where the best nutswere to be found in the neighbourhood, and who could crack them best, or whohad most laid up for the winter, and such like; only they never said where thestore was. There was no great difference in kind between their talk and ourordinary human conversation. Some of the creatures I never heard speak at all,and believe they never do so, except under the impulse of some greatexcitement. The mice talked; but the hedgehogs seemed very phlegmatic; andthough I met a couple of moles above ground several times, they never said aword to each other in my hearing. There were no wild beasts in the forest; atleast, I did not see one larger than a wild cat. There were plenty of snakes,however, and I do not think they were all harmless; but none ever bit me.

Soon after mid-day I arrived at a bare rocky hill, of no great size, but verysteep; and having no trees—scarcely even a bush—upon it, entirelyexposed to the heat of the sun. Over this my way seemed to lie, and Iimmediately began the ascent. On reaching the top, hot and weary, I lookedaround me, and saw that the forest still stretched as far as the sight couldreach on every side of me. I observed that the trees, in the direction in whichI was about to descend, did not come so near the foot of the hill as on theother side, and was especially regretting the unexpected postponement ofshelter, because this side of the hill seemed more difficult to descend thanthe other had been to climb, when my eye caught the appearance of a naturalpath, winding down through broken rocks and along the course of a tiny stream,which I hoped would lead me more easily to the foot. I tried it, and found thedescent not at all laborious; nevertheless, when I reached the bottom, I wasvery tired and exhausted with the heat. But just where the path seemed to end,rose a great rock, quite overgrown with shrubs and creeping plants, some ofthem in full and splendid blossom: these almost concealed an opening in therock, into which the path appeared to lead. I entered, thirsting for the shadewhich it promised. What was my delight to find a rocky cell, all the anglesrounded away with rich moss, and every ledge and projection crowded with lovelyferns, the variety of whose forms, and groupings, and shades wrought in me likea poem; for such a harmony could not exist, except they all consented to someone end! A little well of the clearest water filled a mossy hollow in onecorner. I drank, and felt as if I knew what the elixir of life must be; thenthrew myself on a mossy mound that lay like a couch along the inner end. Here Ilay in a delicious reverie for some time; during which all lovely forms, andcolours, and sounds seemed to use my brain as a common hall, where they couldcome and go, unbidden and unexcused. I had never imagined that such capacityfor simple happiness lay in me, as was now awakened by this assembly of formsand spiritual sensations, which yet were far too vague to admit of beingtranslated into any shape common to my own and another mind. I had lain for anhour, I should suppose, though it may have been far longer, when, theharmonious tumult in my mind having somewhat relaxed, I became aware that myeyes were fixed on a strange, time-worn bas-relief on the rock opposite to me.This, after some pondering, I concluded to represent Pygmalion, as he awaitedthe quickening of his statue. The sculptor sat more rigid than the figure towhich his eyes were turned. That seemed about to step from its pedestal andembrace the man, who waited rather than expected.

“A lovely story,” I said to myself. “This cave, now, with thebushes cut away from the entrance to let the light in, might be such a place ashe would choose, withdrawn from the notice of men, to set up his block ofmarble, and mould into a visible body the thought already clothed with form inthe unseen hall of the sculptor’s brain. And, indeed, if I mistakenot,” I said, starting up, as a sudden ray of light arrived at thatmoment through a crevice in the roof, and lighted up a small portion of therock, bare of vegetation, “this very rock is marble, white enough anddelicate enough for any statue, even if destined to become an ideal woman inthe arms of the sculptor.”

I took my knife and removed the moss from a part of the block on which I hadbeen lying; when, to my surprise, I found it more like alabaster than ordinarymarble, and soft to the edge of the knife. In fact, it was alabaster. By aninexplicable, though by no means unusual kind of impulse, I went on removingthe moss from the surface of the stone; and soon saw that it was polished, orat least smooth, throughout. I continued my labour; and after clearing a spaceof about a couple of square feet, I observed what caused me to prosecute thework with more interest and care than before. For the ray of sunlight had nowreached the spot I had cleared, and under its lustre the alabaster revealed itsusual slight transparency when polished, except where my knife had scratchedthe surface; and I observed that the transparency seemed to have a definitelimit, and to end upon an opaque body like the more solid, white marble. I wascareful to scratch no more. And first, a vague anticipation gave way to astartling sense of possibility; then, as I proceeded, one revelation afteranother produced the entrancing conviction, that under the crust of alabasterlay a dimly visible form in marble, but whether of man or woman I could not yettell. I worked on as rapidly as the necessary care would permit; and when I haduncovered the whole mass, and rising from my knees, had retreated a little way,so that the effect of the whole might fall on me, I saw before me withsufficient plainness—though at the same time with considerableindistinctness, arising from the limited amount of light the place admitted, aswell as from the nature of the object itself—a block of pure alabasterenclosing the form, apparently in marble, of a reposing woman. She lay on oneside, with her hand under her cheek, and her face towards me; but her hair hadfallen partly over her face, so that I could not see the expression of thewhole. What I did see appeared to me perfectly lovely; more near the face thathad been born with me in my soul, than anything I had seen before in nature orart. The actual outlines of the rest of the form were so indistinct, that themore than semi-opacity of the alabaster seemed insufficient to account for thefact; and I conjectured that a light robe added its obscurity. Numberlesshistories passed through my mind of change of substance from enchantment andother causes, and of imprisonments such as this before me. I thought of thePrince of the Enchanted City, half marble and half a man; of Ariel; of Niobe;of the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood; of the bleeding trees; and many otherhistories. Even my adventure of the preceding evening with the lady of thebeech-tree contributed to arouse the wild hope, that by some means life mightbe given to this form also, and that, breaking from her alabaster tomb, shemight glorify my eyes with her presence. “For,” I argued,“who can tell but this cave may be the home of Marble, and this,essential Marble—that spirit of marble which, present throughout, makesit capable of being moulded into any form? Then if she should awake! But how toawake her? A kiss awoke the Sleeping Beauty! a kiss cannot reach her throughthe incrusting alabaster.” I kneeled, however, and kissed the palecoffin; but she slept on. I bethought me of Orpheus, and the followingstones—that trees should follow his music seemed nothing surprising now.Might not a song awake this form, that the glory of motion might for a timedisplace the loveliness of rest? Sweet sounds can go where kisses may notenter. I sat and thought. Now, although always delighting in music, I had neverbeen gifted with the power of song, until I entered the fairy forest. I had avoice, and I had a true sense of sound; but when I tried to sing, the one wouldnot content the other, and so I remained silent. This morning, however, I hadfound myself, ere I was aware, rejoicing in a song; but whether it was beforeor after I had eaten of the fruits of the forest, I could not satisfy myself. Iconcluded it was after, however; and that the increased impulse to sing I nowfelt, was in part owing to having drunk of the little well, which shone like abrilliant eye in a corner of the cave. I sat down on the ground by the“antenatal tomb,” leaned upon it with my face towards the head ofthe figure within, and sang—the words and tones coming together, andinseparably connected, as if word and tone formed one thing; or, as if eachword could be uttered only in that tone, and was incapable of distinction fromit, except in idea, by an acute analysis. I sang something like this: but thewords are only a dull representation of a state whose very elevation precludedthe possibility of remembrance; and in which I presume the words reallyemployed were as far above these, as that state transcended this wherein Irecall it:

“Marble woman, vainly sleeping
In the very death of dreams!
Wilt thou—slumber from thee sweeping,
All but what with vision teems—
Hear my voice come through the golden
Mist of memory and hope;
And with shadowy smile embolden
Me with primal Death to cope?

“Thee the sculptors all pursuing,
Have embodied but their own;
Round their visions, form enduring,
Marble vestments thou hast thrown;
But thyself, in silence winding,
Thou hast kept eternally;
Thee they found not, many finding—
I have found thee: wake for me.”

As I sang, I looked earnestly at the face so vaguely revealed before me. Ifancied, yet believed it to be but fancy, that through the dim veil of thealabaster, I saw a motion of the head as if caused by a sinking sigh. I gazedmore earnestly, and concluded that it was but fancy. Neverthless I could nothelp singing again—

“Rest is now filled full of beauty,
And can give thee up, I ween;
Come thou forth, for other duty
Motion pineth for her queen.

“Or, if needing years to wake thee
From thy slumbrous solitudes,
Come, sleep-walking, and betake thee
To the friendly, sleeping woods.

Sweeter dreams are in the forest,
Round thee storms would never rave;
And when need of rest is sorest,
Glide thou then into thy cave.

“Or, if still thou choosest rather
Marble, be its spell on me;
Let thy slumber round me gather,
Let another dream with thee!”

Again I paused, and gazed through the stony shroud, as if, by very force ofpenetrative sight, I would clear every lineament of the lovely face. And now Ithought the hand that had lain under the cheek, had slipped a little downward.But then I could not be sure that I had at first observed its positionaccurately. So I sang again; for the longing had grown into a passionate needof seeing her alive—

“Or art thou Death, O woman? for since I
    Have set me singing by thy side,
Life hath forsook the upper sky,
    And all the outer world hath died.

“Yea, I am dead; for thou hast drawn
    My life all downward unto thee.
Dead moon of love! let twilight dawn:
    Awake! and let the darkness flee.

“Cold lady of the lovely stone!
    Awake! or I shall perish here;
And thou be never more alone,
    My form and I for ages near.

“But words are vain; reject them all—
    They utter but a feeble part:
Hear thou the depths from which they call,
    The voiceless longing of my heart.”

There arose a slightly crashing sound. Like a sudden apparition that comes andis gone, a white form, veiled in a light robe of whiteness, burst upwards fromthe stone, stood, glided forth, and gleamed away towards the woods. For Ifollowed to the mouth of the cave, as soon as the amazement and concentrationof delight permitted the nerves of motion again to act; and saw the white formamidst the trees, as it crossed a little glade on the edge of the forest wherethe sunlight fell full, seeming to gather with intenser radiance on the oneobject that floated rather than flitted through its lake of beams. I gazedafter her in a kind of despair; found, freed, lost! It seemed useless tofollow, yet follow I must. I marked the direction she took; and without oncelooking round to the forsaken cave, I hastened towards the forest.

CHAPTER VI

“Ah, let a man beware, when his wishes, fulfilled, rain down
upon him, and his happiness is unbounded.”
          —FOUQUÉ, Der Zauberring.

“Thy red lips, like worms,
Travel over my cheek.”
          —MOTHERWELL.

But as I crossed the space between the foot of the hill and the forest, avision of another kind delayed my steps. Through an opening to the westwardflowed, like a stream, the rays of the setting sun, and overflowed with a ruddysplendour the open space where I was. And riding as it were down this streamtowards me, came a horseman in what appeared red armour. From frontlet to tail,the horse likewise shone red in the sunset. I felt as if I must have seen theknight before; but as he drew near, I could recall no feature of hiscountenance. Ere he came up to me, however, I remembered the legend of SirPercival in the rusty armour, which I had left unfinished in the old book inthe cottage: it was of Sir Percival that he reminded me. And no wonder; forwhen he came close up to me, I saw that, from crest to heel, the whole surfaceof his armour was covered with a light rust. The golden spurs shone, but theiron greaves glowed in the sunlight. The morning star, which hung fromhis wrist, glittered and glowed with its silver and bronze. His wholeappearance was terrible; but his face did not answer to this appearance. It wassad, even to gloominess; and something of shame seemed to cover it. Yet it wasnoble and high, though thus beclouded; and the form looked lofty, although thehead drooped, and the whole frame was bowed as with an inward grief. The horseseemed to share in his master’s dejection, and walked spiritless andslow. I noticed, too, that the white plume on his helmet was discoloured anddrooping. “He has fallen in a joust with spears,” I said to myself;“yet it becomes not a noble knight to be conquered in spirit because hisbody hath fallen.” He appeared not to observe me, for he was riding pastwithout looking up, and started into a warlike attitude the moment the firstsound of my voice reached him. Then a flush, as of shame, covered all of hisface that the lifted beaver disclosed. He returned my greeting with distantcourtesy, and passed on. But suddenly, he reined up, sat a moment still, andthen turning his horse, rode back to where I stood looking after him.

“I am ashamed,” he said, “to appear a knight, and in such aguise; but it behoves me to tell you to take warning from me, lest the sameevil, in his kind, overtake the singer that has befallen the knight. Hast thouever read the story of Sir Percival and the”—(here he shuddered,that his armour rang)—“Maiden of the Alder-tree?”

“In part, I have,” said I; “for yesterday, at the entrance ofthis forest, I found in a cottage the volume wherein it is recorded.”

“Then take heed,” he rejoined; “for, see my armour—Iput it off; and as it befell to him, so has it befallen to me. I that was proudam humble now. Yet is she terribly beautiful—beware. Never,” headded, raising his head, “shall this armour be furbished, but by theblows of knightly encounter, until the last speck has disappeared from everyspot where the battle-axe and sword of evil-doers, or noble foes, might fall;when I shall again lift my head, and say to my squire, ‘Do thy duty oncemore, and make this armour shine.’”

Before I could inquire further, he had struck spurs into his horse and gallopedaway, shrouded from my voice in the noise of his armour. For I called afterhim, anxious to know more about this fearful enchantress; but in vain—heheard me not. “Yet,” I said to myself, “I have now been oftenwarned; surely I shall be well on my guard; and I am fully resolved I shall notbe ensnared by any beauty, however beautiful. Doubtless, some one man mayescape, and I shall be he.” So I went on into the wood, still hoping tofind, in some one of its mysterious recesses, my lost lady of the marble. Thesunny afternoon died into the loveliest twilight. Great bats began to flitabout with their own noiseless flight, seemingly purposeless, because itsobjects are unseen. The monotonous music of the owl issued from all unexpectedquarters in the half-darkness around me. The glow-worm was alight here andthere, burning out into the great universe. The night-hawk heightened all theharmony and stillness with his oft-recurring, discordant jar. Numberlessunknown sounds came out of the unknown dusk; but all were of twilight-kind,oppressing the heart as with a condensed atmosphere of dreamy undefined loveand longing. The odours of night arose, and bathed me in that luxuriousmournfulness peculiar to them, as if the plants whence they floated had beenwatered with bygone tears. Earth drew me towards her bosom; I felt as if Icould fall down and kiss her. I forgot I was in Fairy Land, and seemed to bewalking in a perfect night of our own old nursing earth. Great stems rose aboutme, uplifting a thick multitudinous roof above me of branches, and twigs, andleaves—the bird and insect world uplifted over mine, with its ownlandscapes, its own thickets, and paths, and glades, and dwellings; its ownbird-ways and insect-delights. Great boughs crossed my path; great roots basedthe tree-columns, and mightily clasped the earth, strong to lift and strong touphold. It seemed an old, old forest, perfect in forest ways and pleasures. Andwhen, in the midst of this ecstacy, I remembered that under some close canopyof leaves, by some giant stem, or in some mossy cave, or beside some leafywell, sat the lady of the marble, whom my songs had called forth into the outerworld, waiting (might it not be?) to meet and thank her deliverer in a twilightwhich would veil her confusion, the whole night became one dream-realm of joy,the central form of which was everywhere present, although unbeheld. Then,remembering how my songs seemed to have called her from the marble, piercingthrough the pearly shroud of alabaster—“Why,” thought I,“should not my voice reach her now, through the ebon night that inwrapsher.” My voice burst into song so spontaneously that it seemedinvoluntarily.

“Not a sound
But, echoing in me,
Vibrates all around
With a blind delight,
Till it breaks on Thee,
Queen of Night!

Every tree,
O’ershadowing with gloom,
Seems to cover thee
Secret, dark, love-still’d,
In a holy room
Silence-filled.

“Let no moon
Creep up the heaven to-night;
I in darksome noon
Walking hopefully,
Seek my shrouded light—
Grope for thee!

“Darker grow
The borders of the dark!
Through the branches glow,
From the roof above,
Star and diamond-sparks
Light for love.”

Scarcely had the last sounds floated away from the hearing of my own ears, whenI heard instead a low delicious laugh near me. It was not the laugh of one whowould not be heard, but the laugh of one who has just received something longand patiently desired—a laugh that ends in a low musical moan. I started,and, turning sideways, saw a dim white figure seated beside an intertwiningthicket of smaller trees and underwood.

“It is my white lady!” I said, and flung myself on the groundbeside her; striving, through the gathering darkness, to get a glimpse of theform which had broken its marble prison at my call.

“It is your white lady!” said the sweetest voice, in reply, sendinga thrill of speechless delight through a heart which all the love-charms of thepreceding day and evening had been tempering for this culminating hour. Yet, ifI would have confessed it, there was something either in the sound of thevoice, although it seemed sweetness itself, or else in this yielding whichawaited no gradation of gentle approaches, that did not vibrate harmoniouslywith the beat of my inward music. And likewise, when, taking her hand in mine,I drew closer to her, looking for the beauty of her face, which, indeed, Ifound too plenteously, a cold shiver ran through me; but “it is themarble,” I said to myself, and heeded it not.

She withdrew her hand from mine, and after that would scarce allow me to touchher. It seemed strange, after the fulness of her first greeting, that she couldnot trust me to come close to her. Though her words were those of a lover, shekept herself withdrawn as if a mile of space interposed between us.

“Why did you run away from me when you woke in the cave?” I said.

“Did I?” she returned. “That was very unkind of me; but I didnot know better.”

“I wish I could see you. The night is very dark.”

“So it is. Come to my grotto. There is light there.”

“Have you another cave, then?”

“Come and see.”

But she did not move until I rose first, and then she was on her feet before Icould offer my hand to help her. She came close to my side, and conducted methrough the wood. But once or twice, when, involuntarily almost, I was about toput my arm around her as we walked on through the warm gloom, she sprang awayseveral paces, always keeping her face full towards me, and then stood lookingat me, slightly stooping, in the attitude of one who fears some half-seenenemy. It was too dark to discern the expression of her face. Then she wouldreturn and walk close beside me again, as if nothing had happened. I thoughtthis strange; but, besides that I had almost, as I said before, given up theattempt to account for appearances in Fairy Land, I judged that it would bevery unfair to expect from one who had slept so long and had been so suddenlyawakened, a behaviour correspondent to what I might unreflectingly look for. Iknew not what she might have been dreaming about. Besides, it was possiblethat, while her words were free, her sense of touch might be exquisitelydelicate.

At length, after walking a long way in the woods, we arrived at anotherthicket, through the intertexture of which was glimmering a pale rosy light.

“Push aside the branches,” she said, “and make room for us toenter.”

I did as she told me.

“Go in,” she said; “I will follow you.”

I did as she desired, and found myself in a little cave, not very unlike themarble cave. It was festooned and draperied with all kinds of green that clingto shady rocks. In the furthest corner, half-hidden in leaves, through which itglowed, mingling lovely shadows between them, burned a bright rosy flame on alittle earthen lamp. The lady glided round by the wall from behind me, stillkeeping her face towards me, and seated herself in the furthest corner, withher back to the lamp, which she hid completely from my view. I then saw indeeda form of perfect loveliness before me. Almost it seemed as if the light of therose-lamp shone through her (for it could not be reflected from her); such adelicate shade of pink seemed to shadow what in itself must be a marblywhiteness of hue. I discovered afterwards, however, that there was one thing init I did not like; which was, that the white part of the eye was tinged withthe same slight roseate hue as the rest of the form. It is strange that Icannot recall her features; but they, as well as her somewhat girlish figure,left on me simply and only the impression of intense loveliness. I lay down ather feet, and gazed up into her face as I lay. She began, and told me a strangetale, which, likewise, I cannot recollect; but which, at every turn and everypause, somehow or other fixed my eyes and thoughts upon her extreme beauty;seeming always to culminate in something that had a relation, revealed orhidden, but always operative, with her own loveliness. I lay entranced. It wasa tale which brings back a feeling as of snows and tempests; torrents andwater-sprites; lovers parted for long, and meeting at last; with a gorgeoussummer night to close up the whole. I listened till she and I were blended withthe tale; till she and I were the whole history. And we had met at last in thissame cave of greenery, while the summer night hung round us heavy with love,and the odours that crept through the silence from the sleeping woods were theonly signs of an outer world that invaded our solitude. What followed I cannotclearly remember. The succeeding horror almost obliterated it. I woke as a greydawn stole into the cave. The damsel had disappeared; but in the shrubbery, atthe mouth of the cave, stood a strange horrible object. It looked like an opencoffin set up on one end; only that the part for the head and neck was definedfrom the shoulder-part. In fact, it was a rough representation of the humanframe, only hollow, as if made of decaying bark torn from a tree.

It had arms, which were only slightly seamed, down from the shoulder-blade bythe elbow, as if the bark had healed again from the cut of a knife. But thearms moved, and the hand and the fingers were tearing asunder a long silkytress of hair. The thing turned round—it had for a face and front thoseof my enchantress, but now of a pale greenish hue in the light of the morning,and with dead lustreless eyes. In the horror of the moment, another fearinvaded me. I put my hand to my waist, and found indeed that my girdle ofbeech-leaves was gone. Hair again in her hands, she was tearing it fiercely.Once more, as she turned, she laughed a low laugh, but now full of scorn andderision; and then she said, as if to a companion with whom she had beentalking while I slept, “There he is; you can take him now.” I laystill, petrified with dismay and fear; for I now saw another figure beside her,which, although vague and indistinct, I yet recognised but too well. It was theAsh-tree. My beauty was the Maid of the Alder! and she was giving me, spoiledof my only availing defence, into the hands of my awful foe. The Ash bent hisGorgon-head, and entered the cave. I could not stir. He drew near me. Hisghoul-eyes and his ghastly face fascinated me. He came stooping, with thehideous hand outstretched, like a beast of prey. I had given myself up to adeath of unfathomable horror, when, suddenly, and just as he was on the pointof seizing me, the dull, heavy blow of an axe echoed through the wood, followedby others in quick repetition. The Ash shuddered and groaned, withdrew theoutstretched hand, retreated backwards to the mouth of the cave, then turnedand disappeared amongst the trees. The other walking Death looked at me once,with a careless dislike on her beautifully moulded features; then, heedless anymore to conceal her hollow deformity, turned her frightful back and likewisevanished amid the green obscurity without. I lay and wept. The Maid of theAlder-tree had befooled me—nearly slain me—in spite of all thewarnings I had received from those who knew my danger.

CHAPTER VII

“Fight on, my men, Sir Andrew sayes,
    A little I am hurt, but yett not slaine;
I’le but lye downe and bleede awhile,
    And then I’le rise and fight againe.”
          BALLADof Sir Andrew Barton.

But I could not remain where I was any longer, though the daylight was hatefulto me, and the thought of the great, innocent, bold sunrise unendurable. Herethere was no well to cool my face, smarting with the bitterness of my owntears. Nor would I have washed in the well of that grotto, had it flowed clearas the rivers of Paradise. I rose, and feebly left the sepulchral cave. I tookmy way I knew not whither, but still towards the sunrise. The birds weresinging; but not for me. All the creatures spoke a language of their own, withwhich I had nothing to do, and to which I cared not to find the key any more.

I walked listlessly along. What distressed me most—more even than my ownfolly—was the perplexing question, How can beauty and ugliness dwell sonear? Even with her altered complexion and her face of dislike; disenchanted ofthe belief that clung around her; known for a living, walking sepulchre,faithless, deluding, traitorous; I felt notwithstanding all this, that she wasbeautiful. Upon this I pondered with undiminished perplexity, though notwithout some gain. Then I began to make surmises as to the mode of mydeliverance; and concluded that some hero, wandering in search of adventure,had heard how the forest was infested; and, knowing it was useless to attackthe evil thing in person, had assailed with his battle-axe the body in which hedwelt, and on which he was dependent for his power of mischief in the wood.“Very likely,” I thought, “the repentant-knight, who warnedme of the evil which has befallen me, was busy retrieving his lost honour,while I was sinking into the same sorrow with himself; and, hearing of thedangerous and mysterious being, arrived at his tree in time to save me frombeing dragged to its roots, and buried like carrion, to nourish him for yetdeeper insatiableness.” I found afterwards that my conjecture wascorrect. I wondered how he had fared when his blows recalled the Ash himself,and that too I learned afterwards.

I walked on the whole day, with intervals of rest, but without food; for Icould not have eaten, had any been offered me; till, in the afternoon, I seemedto approach the outskirts of the forest, and at length arrived at a farm-house.An unspeakable joy arose in my heart at beholding an abode of human beings oncemore, and I hastened up to the door, and knocked. A kind-looking, matronlywoman, still handsome, made her appearance; who, as soon as she saw me, saidkindly, “Ah, my poor boy, you have come from the wood! Were you in itlast night?”

I should have ill endured, the day before, to be called boy; but now themotherly kindness of the word went to my heart; and, like a boy indeed, I burstinto tears. She soothed me right gently; and, leading me into a room, made melie down on a settle, while she went to find me some refreshment. She soonreturned with food, but I could not eat. She almost compelled me to swallowsome wine, when I revived sufficiently to be able to answer some of herquestions. I told her the whole story.

“It is just as I feared,” she said; “but you are now for thenight beyond the reach of any of these dreadful creatures. It is no wonder theycould delude a child like you. But I must beg you, when my husband comes in,not to say a word about these things; for he thinks me even half crazy forbelieving anything of the sort. But I must believe my senses, as he cannotbelieve beyond his, which give him no intimations of this kind. I think hecould spend the whole of Midsummer-eve in the wood and come back with thereport that he saw nothing worse than himself. Indeed, good man, he wouldhardly find anything better than himself, if he had seven more senses givenhim.”

“But tell me how it is that she could be so beautiful without any heartat all—without any place even for a heart to live in.”

“I cannot quite tell,” she said; “but I am sure she would notlook so beautiful if she did not take means to make herself look more beautifulthan she is. And then, you know, you began by being in love with her before yousaw her beauty, mistaking her for the lady of the marble—another kindaltogether, I should think. But the chief thing that makes her beautiful isthis: that, although she loves no man, she loves the love of any man; and whenshe finds one in her power, her desire to bewitch him and gain his love (notfor the sake of his love either, but that she may be conscious anew of her ownbeauty, through the admiration he manifests), makes her very lovely—witha self-destructive beauty, though; for it is that which is constantly wearingher away within, till, at last, the decay will reach her face, and her wholefront, when all the lovely mask of nothing will fall to pieces, and she bevanished for ever. So a wise man, whom she met in the wood some years ago, andwho, I think, for all his wisdom, fared no better than you, told me, when, likeyou, he spent the next night here, and recounted to me his adventures.”

I thanked her very warmly for her solution, though it was but partial;wondering much that in her, as in the woman I met on my first entering the forest,there should be such superiority to her apparent condition. Here she left me totake some rest; though, indeed, I was too much agitated to rest in any otherway than by simply ceasing to move.

In half an hour, I heard a heavy step approach and enter the house. A jollyvoice, whose slight huskiness appeared to proceed from overmuch laughter,called out “Betsy, the pigs’ trough is quite empty, and that is apity. Let them swill, lass! They’re of no use but to get fat. Ha! ha! ha!Gluttony is not forbidden in their commandments. Ha! ha! ha!” The veryvoice, kind and jovial, seemed to disrobe the room of the strange look whichall new places wear—to disenchant it out of the realm of the ideal intothat of the actual. It began to look as if I had known every corner of it fortwenty years; and when, soon after, the dame came and fetched me to partake oftheir early supper, the grasp of his great hand, and the harvest-moon of hisbenevolent face, which was needed to light up the rotundity of the globebeneath it, produced such a reaction in me, that, for a moment, I could hardlybelieve that there was a Fairy Land; and that all I had passed through since Ileft home, had not been the wandering dream of a diseased imagination,operating on a too mobile frame, not merely causing me indeed to travel, butpeopling for me with vague phantoms the regions through which my actual stepshad led me. But the next moment my eye fell upon a little girl who was sittingin the chimney-corner, with a little book open on her knee, from which she hadapparently just looked up to fix great inquiring eyes upon me. I believed inFairy Land again. She went on with her reading, as soon as she saw that Iobserved her looking at me. I went near, and peeping over her shoulder, sawthat she was reading The History of Graciosa and Percinet.

“Very improving book, sir,” remarked the old farmer, with agood-humoured laugh. “We are in the very hottest corner of Fairy Landhere. Ha! ha! Stormy night, last night, sir.”

“Was it, indeed?” I rejoined. “It was not so with me. Alovelier night I never saw.”

“Indeed! Where were you last night?”

“I spent it in the forest. I had lost my way.”

“Ah! then, perhaps, you will be able to convince my good woman, thatthere is nothing very remarkable about the forest; for, to tell the truth, itbears but a bad name in these parts. I dare say you saw nothing worse thanyourself there?”

“I hope I did,” was my inward reply; but, for an audible one, Icontented myself with saying, “Why, I certainly did see some appearancesI could hardly account for; but that is nothing to be wondered at in an unknownwild forest, and with the uncertain light of the moon alone to go by.”

“Very true! you speak like a sensible man, sir. We have but few sensiblefolks round about us. Now, you would hardly credit it, but my wife believesevery fairy-tale that ever was written. I cannot account for it. She is a mostsensible woman in everything else.”

“But should not that make you treat her belief with something of respect,though you cannot share in it yourself?”

“Yes, that is all very well in theory; but when you come to live everyday in the midst of absurdity, it is far less easy to behave respectfully toit. Why, my wife actually believes the story of the ‘White Cat.’You know it, I dare say.”

“I read all these tales when a child, and know that one especiallywell.”

“But, father,” interposed the little girl in the chimney-corner,“you know quite well that mother is descended from that very princess whowas changed by the wicked fairy into a white cat. Mother has told me so a manytimes, and you ought to believe everything she says.”

“I can easily believe that,” rejoined the farmer, with another fitof laughter; “for, the other night, a mouse came gnawing and scratchingbeneath the floor, and would not let us go to sleep. Your mother sprang out ofbed, and going as near it as she could, mewed so infernally like a great cat,that the noise ceased instantly. I believe the poor mouse died of the fright,for we have never heard it again. Ha! ha! ha!”

The son, an ill-looking youth, who had entered during the conversation, joinedin his father’s laugh; but his laugh was very different from the oldman’s: it was polluted with a sneer. I watched him, and saw that, as soonas it was over, he looked scared, as if he dreaded some evil consequences tofollow his presumption. The woman stood near, waiting till we should seatourselves at the table, and listening to it all with an amused air, which hadsomething in it of the look with which one listens to the sententious remarksof a pompous child. We sat down to supper, and I ate heartily. My bygonedistresses began already to look far off.

“In what direction are you going?” asked the old man.

“Eastward,” I replied; nor could I have given a more definiteanswer. “Does the forest extend much further in that direction?”

“Oh! for miles and miles; I do not know how far. For although I havelived on the borders of it all my life, I have been too busy to make journeysof discovery into it. Nor do I see what I could discover. It is only trees andtrees, till one is sick of them. By the way, if you follow the eastward trackfrom here, you will pass close to what the children say is the very house ofthe ogre that Hop-o’-my-Thumb visited, and ate his little daughters withthe crowns of gold.”

“Oh, father! ate his little daughters! No; he only changed their goldcrowns for nightcaps; and the great long-toothed ogre killed them in mistake;but I do not think even he ate them, for you know they were his own littleogresses.”

“Well, well, child; you know all about it a great deal better than I do.However, the house has, of course, in such a foolish neighbourhood as this, abad enough name; and I must confess there is a woman living in it, with teethlong enough, and white enough too, for the lineal descendant of the greatestogre that ever was made. I think you had better not go near her.”

In such talk as this the night wore on. When supper was finished, which lastedsome time, my hostess conducted me to my chamber.

“If you had not had enough of it already,” she said, “I wouldhave put you in another room, which looks towards the forest; and where youwould most likely have seen something more of its inhabitants. For theyfrequently pass the window, and even enter the room sometimes. Strangecreatures spend whole nights in it, at certain seasons of the year. I am usedto it, and do not mind it. No more does my little girl, who sleeps in italways. But this room looks southward towards the open country, and they nevershow themselves here; at least I never saw any.”

I was somewhat sorry not to gather any experience that I might have, of theinhabitants of Fairy Land; but the effect of the farmer’s company, and ofmy own later adventures, was such, that I chose rather an undisturbed night inmy more human quarters; which, with their clean white curtains and white linen,were very inviting to my weariness.

In the morning I awoke refreshed, after a profound and dreamless sleep. The sunwas high, when I looked out of the window, shining over a wide, undulating,cultivated country. Various garden-vegetables were growing beneath my window.Everything was radiant with clear sunlight. The dew-drops were sparkling theirbusiest; the cows in a near-by field were eating as if they had not been at itall day yesterday; the maids were singing at their work as they passed to andfro between the out-houses: I did not believe in Fairy Land. I went down, andfound the family already at breakfast. But before I entered the room where theysat, the little girl came to me, and looked up in my face, as though she wantedto say something to me. I stooped towards her; she put her arms round my neck,and her mouth to my ear, and whispered—

“A white lady has been flitting about the house all night.”

“No whispering behind doors!” cried the farmer; and we enteredtogether. “Well, how have you slept? No bogies, eh?”

“Not one, thank you; I slept uncommonly well.”

“I am glad to hear it. Come and breakfast.”

After breakfast, the farmer and his son went out; and I was left alone with themother and daughter.

“When I looked out of the window this morning,” I said, “Ifelt almost certain that Fairy Land was all a delusion of my brain; butwhenever I come near you or your little daughter, I feel differently. Yet Icould persuade myself, after my last adventures, to go back, and have nothingmore to do with such strange beings.”

“How will you go back?” said the woman.

“Nay, that I do not know.”

“Because I have heard, that, for those who enter Fairy Land, there is noway of going back. They must go on, and go through it. How, I do not in theleast know.”

“That is quite the impression on my own mind. Something compels me to goon, as if my only path was onward, but I feel less inclined this morning tocontinue my adventures.”

“Will you come and see my little child’s room? She sleeps in theone I told you of, looking towards the forest.”

“Willingly,” I said.

So we went together, the little girl running before to open the door for us. Itwas a large room, full of old-fashioned furniture, that seemed to have oncebelonged to some great house.

The window was built with a low arch, and filled with lozenge-shaped panes. Thewall was very thick, and built of solid stone. I could see that part of thehouse had been erected against the remains of some old castle or abbey, orother great building; the fallen stones of which had probably served tocomplete it. But as soon as I looked out of the window, a gush of wondermentand longing flowed over my soul like the tide of a great sea. Fairy Land laybefore me, and drew me towards it with an irresistible attraction. The treesbathed their great heads in the waves of the morning, while their roots wereplanted deep in gloom; save where on the borders the sunshine broke againsttheir stems, or swept in long streams through their avenues, washing withbrighter hue all the leaves over which it flowed; revealing the rich brown ofthe decayed leaves and fallen pine-cones, and the delicate greens of the longgrasses and tiny forests of moss that covered the channel over which it passedin motionless rivers of light. I turned hurriedly to bid my hostess farewellwithout further delay. She smiled at my haste, but with an anxious look.

“You had better not go near the house of the ogre, I think. My son willshow you into another path, which will join the first beyond it.”

Not wishing to be headstrong or too confident any more, I agreed; and havingtaken leave of my kind entertainers, went into the wood, accompanied by theyouth. He scarcely spoke as we went along; but he led me through the trees tillwe struck upon a path. He told me to follow it, and, with a muttered“good morning” left me.

CHAPTER VIII

“I am a part of the part, which at first was the whole.”
          GOETHE.—Mephistopheles in Faust.

My spirits rose as I went deeper; into the forest; but I could not regain myformer elasticity of mind. I found cheerfulness to be like lifeitself—not to be created by any argument. Afterwards I learned, that thebest way to manage some kinds of pain filled thoughts, is to dare them to dotheir worst; to let them lie and gnaw at your heart till they are tired; andyou find you still have a residue of life they cannot kill. So, better andworse, I went on, till I came to a little clearing in the forest. In the middleof this clearing stood a long, low hut, built with one end against a singletall cypress, which rose like a spire to the building. A vague misgivingcrossed my mind when I saw it; but I must needs go closer, and look through alittle half-open door, near the opposite end from the cypress. Window I sawnone. On peeping in, and looking towards the further end, I saw a lamp burning,with a dim, reddish flame, and the head of a woman, bent downwards, as ifreading by its light. I could see nothing more for a few moments. At length, asmy eyes got used to the dimness of the place, I saw that the part of the rudebuilding near me was used for household purposes; for several rough utensilslay here and there, and a bed stood in the corner.

An irresistible attraction caused me to enter. The woman never raised her face,the upper part of which alone I could see distinctly; but, as soon as I steppedwithin the threshold, she began to read aloud, in a low and not altogetherunpleasing voice, from an ancient little volume which she held open with onehand on the table upon which stood the lamp. What she read was something likethis:

“So, then, as darkness had no beginning, neither will it ever have anend. So, then, is it eternal. The negation of aught else, is its affirmation.Where the light cannot come, there abideth the darkness. The light doth buthollow a mine out of the infinite extension of the darkness. And ever upon thesteps of the light treadeth the darkness; yea, springeth in fountains and wellsamidst it, from the secret channels of its mighty sea. Truly, man is but apassing flame, moving unquietly amid the surrounding rest of night; withoutwhich he yet could not be, and whereof he is in part compounded.”

As I drew nearer, and she read on, she moved a little to turn a leaf of thedark old volume, and I saw that her face was sallow and slightly forbidding.Her forehead was high, and her black eyes repressedly quiet. But she took nonotice of me. This end of the cottage, if cottage it could be called, wasdestitute of furniture, except the table with the lamp, and the chair on whichthe woman sat. In one corner was a door, apparently of a cupboard in the wall,but which might lead to a room beyond. Still the irresistible desire which hadmade me enter the building urged me: I must open that door, and see what wasbeyond it. I approached, and laid my hand on the rude latch. Then the womanspoke, but without lifting her head or looking at me: “You had better notopen that door.” This was uttered quite quietly; and she went on with herreading, partly in silence, partly aloud; but both modes seemed equallyintended for herself alone. The prohibition, however, only increased my desireto see; and as she took no further notice, I gently opened the door to its fullwidth, and looked in. At first, I saw nothing worthy of attention. It seemed acommon closet, with shelves on each hand, on which stood various littlenecessaries for the humble uses of a cottage. In one corner stood one or twobrooms, in another a hatchet and other common tools; showing that it was in useevery hour of the day for household purposes. But, as I looked, I saw thatthere were no shelves at the back, and that an empty space went in further; itstermination appearing to be a faintly glimmering wall or curtain, somewhatless, however, than the width and height of the doorway where I stood. But, asI continued looking, for a few seconds, towards this faintly luminous limit, myeyes came into true relation with their object. All at once, with such a shiveras when one is suddenly conscious of the presence of another in a room where hehas, for hours, considered himself alone, I saw that the seemingly luminousextremity was a sky, as of night, beheld through the long perspective of anarrow, dark passage, through what, or built of what, I could not tell. As Igazed, I clearly discerned two or three stars glimmering faintly in the distantblue. But, suddenly, and as if it had been running fast from a far distance forthis very point, and had turned the corner without abating its swiftness, adark figure sped into and along the passage from the blue opening at the remoteend. I started back and shuddered, but kept looking, for I could not help it.On and on it came, with a speedy approach but delayed arrival; till, at last,through the many gradations of approach, it seemed to come within the sphere ofmyself, rushed up to me, and passed me into the cottage. All I could tell ofits appearance was, that it seemed to be a dark human figure. Its motion wasentirely noiseless, and might be called a gliding, were it not that it appearedthat of a runner, but with ghostly feet. I had moved back yet a little to lethim pass me, and looked round after him instantly. I could not see him.

“Where is he?” I said, in some alarm, to the woman, who still satreading.

“There, on the floor, behind you,” she said, pointing with her armhalf-outstretched, but not lifting her eyes. I turned and looked, but sawnothing. Then with a feeling that there was yet something behind me, I lookedround over my shoulder; and there, on the ground, lay a black shadow, the sizeof a man. It was so dark, that I could see it in the dim light of the lamp,which shone full upon it, apparently without thinning at all the intensity ofits hue.

“I told you,” said the woman, “you had better not look intothat closet.”

“What is it?” I said, with a growing sense of horror.

“It is only your shadow that has found you,” she replied.“Everybody’s shadow is ranging up and down looking for him. Ibelieve you call it by a different name in your world: yours has found you, asevery person’s is almost certain to do who looks into that closet,especially after meeting one in the forest, whom I dare say you havemet.”

Here, for the first time, she lifted her head, and looked full at me: her mouthwas full of long, white, shining teeth; and I knew that I was in the house ofthe ogre. I could not speak, but turned and left the house, with the shadow atmy heels. “A nice sort of valet to have,” I said to myselfbitterly, as I stepped into the sunshine, and, looking over my shoulder, sawthat it lay yet blacker in the full blaze of the sunlight. Indeed, only when Istood between it and the sun, was the blackness at all diminished. I was sobewildered—stunned—both by the event itself and its suddenness,that I could not at all realise to myself what it would be to have such aconstant and strange attendance; but with a dim conviction that my presentdislike would soon grow to loathing, I took my dreary way through the wood.

CHAPTER IX

“O lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does nature live:
Ours is her wedding garments ours her shroud!
. . . . .
    Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth,
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud,
    Enveloping the Earth—
And from the soul itself must there be sent
    A sweet and potent voice of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!”
          COLERIDGE.

From this time, until I arrived at the palace of Fairy Land, I can attempt noconsecutive account of my wanderings and adventures. Everything, henceforward,existed for me in its relation to my attendant. What influence he exercisedupon everything into contact with which I was brought, may be understood from afew detached instances. To begin with this very day on which he first joinedme: after I had walked heartlessly along for two or three hours, I was veryweary, and lay down to rest in a most delightful part of the forest, carpetedwith wild flowers. I lay for half an hour in a dull repose, and then got up topursue my way. The flowers on the spot where I had lain were crushed to theearth: but I saw that they would soon lift their heads and rejoice again in thesun and air. Not so those on which my shadow had lain. The very outline of itcould be traced in the withered lifeless grass, and the scorched and shrivelledflowers which stood there, dead, and hopeless of any resurrection. I shuddered,and hastened away with sad forebodings.

In a few days, I had reason to dread an extension of its baleful influencesfrom the fact, that it was no longer confined to one position in regard tomyself. Hitherto, when seized with an irresistible desire to look on my evildemon (which longing would unaccountably seize me at any moment, returning atlonger or shorter intervals, sometimes every minute), I had to turn my headbackwards, and look over my shoulder; in which position, as long as I couldretain it, I was fascinated. But one day, having come out on a clear grassyhill, which commanded a glorious prospect, though of what I cannot now tell, myshadow moved round, and came in front of me. And, presently, a newmanifestation increased my distress. For it began to coruscate, and shoot outon all sides a radiation of dim shadow. These rays of gloom issued from thecentral shadow as from a black sun, lengthening and shortening with continualchange. But wherever a ray struck, that part of earth, or sea, or sky, becamevoid, and desert, and sad to my heart. On this, the first development of itsnew power, one ray shot out beyond the rest, seeming to lengthen infinitely,until it smote the great sun on the face, which withered and darkened beneaththe blow. I turned away and went on. The shadow retreated to its formerposition; and when I looked again, it had drawn in all its spears of darkness,and followed like a dog at my heels.

Once, as I passed by a cottage, there came out a lovely fairy child, with twowondrous toys, one in each hand. The one was the tube through which thefairy-gifted poet looks when he beholds the same thing everywhere; the otherthat through which he looks when he combines into new forms of loveliness thoseimages of beauty which his own choice has gathered from all regions wherein hehas travelled. Round the child’s head was an aureole of emanating rays.As I looked at him in wonder and delight, round crept from behind me thesomething dark, and the child stood in my shadow. Straightway he was acommonplace boy, with a rough broad-brimmed straw hat, through which brim thesun shone from behind. The toys he carried were a multiplying-glass and akaleidoscope. I sighed and departed.

One evening, as a great silent flood of western gold flowed through an avenuein the woods, down the stream, just as when I saw him first, came the sadknight, riding on his chestnut steed.

But his armour did not shine half so red as when I saw him first.

Many a blow of mighty sword and axe, turned aside by the strength of his mail,and glancing adown the surface, had swept from its path the fretted rust, andthe glorious steel had answered the kindly blow with the thanks of returninglight. These streaks and spots made his armour look like the floor of a forestin the sunlight. His forehead was higher than before, for the contractingwrinkles were nearly gone; and the sadness that remained on his face was thesadness of a dewy summer twilight, not that of a frosty autumn morn. He, too,had met the Alder-maiden as I, but he had plunged into the torrent of mightydeeds, and the stain was nearly washed away. No shadow followed him. He had notentered the dark house; he had not had time to open the closet door.“Will he ever look in?” I said to myself. “Musthisshadow find him some day?” But I could not answer my own questions.

We travelled together for two days, and I began to love him. It was plain thathe suspected my story in some degree; and I saw him once or twice lookingcuriously and anxiously at my attendant gloom, which all this time had remainedvery obsequiously behind me; but I offered no explanation, and he asked none.Shame at my neglect of his warning, and a horror which shrunk from evenalluding to its cause, kept me silent; till, on the evening of the second day,some noble words from my companion roused all my heart; and I was at the pointof falling on his neck, and telling him the whole story; seeking, if not forhelpful advice, for of that I was hopeless, yet for the comfort ofsympathy—when round slid the shadow and inwrapt my friend; and I couldnot trust him.

The glory of his brow vanished; the light of his eye grew cold; and I held mypeace. The next morning we parted.

But the most dreadful thing of all was, that I now began to feel something likesatisfaction in the presence of the shadow. I began to be rather vain of myattendant, saying to myself, “In a land like this, with so many illusionseverywhere, I need his aid to disenchant the things around me. He does awaywith all appearances, and shows me things in their true colour and form. And Iam not one to be fooled with the vanities of the common crowd. I will not seebeauty where there is none. I will dare to behold things as they are. And if Ilive in a waste instead of a paradise, I will live knowing where I live.”But of this a certain exercise of his power which soon followed quite cured me,turning my feelings towards him once more into loathing and distrust. It wasthus:

One bright noon, a little maiden joined me, coming through the wood in adirection at right angles to my path. She came along singing and dancing, happyas a child, though she seemed almost a woman. In her hands—now in one,now in another—she carried a small globe, bright and clear as the purestcrystal. This seemed at once her plaything and her greatest treasure. At onemoment, you would have thought her utterly careless of it, and at another,overwhelmed with anxiety for its safety. But I believe she was taking care ofit all the time, perhaps not least when least occupied about it. She stopped byme with a smile, and bade me good day with the sweetest voice. I felt awonderful liking to the child—for she produced on me more the impressionof a child, though my understanding told me differently. We talked a little,and then walked on together in the direction I had been pursuing. I asked herabout the globe she carried, but getting no definite answer, I held out my handto take it. She drew back, and said, but smiling almost invitingly the while,“You must not touch it;”—then, after a moment’spause—“Or if you do, it must be very gently.” I touched itwith a finger. A slight vibratory motion arose in it, accompanied, or perhapsmanifested, by a faint sweet sound. I touched it again, and the soundincreased. I touched it the third time: a tiny torrent of harmony rolled out ofthe little globe. She would not let me touch it any more.

We travelled on together all that day. She left me when twilight came on; butnext day, at noon, she met me as before, and again we travelled till evening.The third day she came once more at noon, and we walked on together. Now,though we had talked about a great many things connected with Fairy Land, andthe life she had led hitherto, I had never been able to learn anything aboutthe globe. This day, however, as we went on, the shadow glided round andinwrapt the maiden. It could not change her. But my desire to know about theglobe, which in his gloom began to waver as with an inward light, and to shootout flashes of many-coloured flame, grew irresistible. I put out both my handsand laid hold of it. It began to sound as before. The sound rapidly increased,till it grew a low tempest of harmony, and the globe trembled, and quivered,and throbbed between my hands. I had not the heart to pull it away from themaiden, though I held it in spite of her attempts to take it from me; yes, Ishame to say, in spite of her prayers, and, at last, her tears. The music wenton growing in, intensity and complication of tones, and the globe vibrated andheaved; till at last it burst in our hands, and a black vapour broke upwardsfrom out of it; then turned, as if blown sideways, and enveloped the maiden,hiding even the shadow in its blackness. She held fast the fragments, which Iabandoned, and fled from me into the forest in the direction whence she hadcome, wailing like a child, and crying, “You have broken my globe; myglobe is broken—my globe is broken!” I followed her, in the hope ofcomforting her; but had not pursued her far, before a sudden cold gust of windbowed the tree-tops above us, and swept through their stems around us; a greatcloud overspread the day, and a fierce tempest came on, in which I lost sightof her. It lies heavy on my heart to this hour. At night, ere I fall asleep,often, whatever I may be thinking about, I suddenly hear her voice, crying out,“You have broken my globe; my globe is broken; ah, my globe!”

Here I will mention one more strange thing; but whether this peculiarity wasowing to my shadow at all, I am not able to assure myself. I came to a village,the inhabitants of which could not at first sight be distinguished from thedwellers in our land. They rather avoided than sought my company, though theywere very pleasant when I addressed them. But at last I observed, that wheneverI came within a certain distance of any one of them, which distance, however,varied with different individuals, the whole appearance of the person began tochange; and this change increased in degree as I approached. When I receded tothe former distance, the former appearance was restored. The nature of thechange was grotesque, following no fixed rule. The nearest resemblance to itthat I know, is the distortion produced in your countenance when you look at itas reflected in a concave or convex surface—say, either side of a brightspoon. Of this phenomenon I first became aware in rather a ludicrous way. Myhost’s daughter was a very pleasant pretty girl, who made herself moreagreeable to me than most of those about me. For some days my companion-shadowhad been less obtrusive than usual; and such was the reaction of spiritsoccasioned by the simple mitigation of torment, that, although I had causeenough besides to be gloomy, I felt light and comparatively happy. Myimpression is, that she was quite aware of the law of appearances that existedbetween the people of the place and myself, and had resolved to amuse herselfat my expense; for one evening, after some jesting and raillery, she, somehowor other, provoked me to attempt to kiss her. But she was well defended fromany assault of the kind. Her countenance became, of a sudden, absurdly hideous;the pretty mouth was elongated and otherwise amplified sufficiently to haveallowed of six simultaneous kisses. I started back in bewildered dismay; sheburst into the merriest fit of laughter, and ran from the room. I soon foundthat the same undefinable law of change operated between me and all the othervillagers; and that, to feel I was in pleasant company, it was absolutelynecessary for me to discover and observe the right focal distance betweenmyself and each one with whom I had to do. This done, all went pleasantlyenough. Whether, when I happened to neglect this precaution, I presented tothem an equally ridiculous appearance, I did not ascertain; but I presume thatthe alteration was common to the approximating parties. I was likewise unableto determine whether I was a necessary party to the production of this strangetransformation, or whether it took place as well, under the givencircumstances, between the inhabitants themselves.

CHAPTER X

“From Eden’s bowers the full-fed rivers flow,
To guide the outcasts to the land of woe:
Our Earth one little toiling streamlet yields.
To guide the wanderers to the happy fields.”

After leaving this village, where I had rested for nearly a week, I travelledthrough a desert region of dry sand and glittering rocks, peopled principallyby goblin-fairies. When I first entered their domains, and, indeed, whenever Ifell in with another tribe of them, they began mocking me with offered handfulsof gold and jewels, making hideous grimaces at me, and performing the mostantic homage, as if they thought I expected reverence, and meant to humour melike a maniac. But ever, as soon as one cast his eyes on the shadow behind me,he made a wry face, partly of pity, partly of contempt, and looked ashamed, asif he had been caught doing something inhuman; then, throwing down his handfulof gold, and ceasing all his grimaces, he stood aside to let me pass in peace,and made signs to his companions to do the like. I had no inclination toobserve them much, for the shadow was in my heart as well as at my heels. Iwalked listlessly and almost hopelessly along, till I arrived one day at asmall spring; which, bursting cool from the heart of a sun-heated rock, flowedsomewhat southwards from the direction I had been taking. I drank of thisspring, and found myself wonderfully refreshed. A kind of love to the cheerfullittle stream arose in my heart. It was born in a desert; but it seemed to sayto itself, “I will flow, and sing, and lave my banks, till I make mydesert a paradise.” I thought I could not do better than follow it, andsee what it made of it. So down with the stream I went, over rocky lands,burning with sunbeams. But the rivulet flowed not far, before a few blades ofgrass appeared on its banks, and then, here and there, a stunted bush.Sometimes it disappeared altogether under ground; and after I had wandered somedistance, as near as I could guess, in the direction it seemed to take, I wouldsuddenly hear it again, singing, sometimes far away to my right or left,amongst new rocks, over which it made new cataracts of watery melodies. Theverdure on its banks increased as it flowed; other streams joined it; and atlast, after many days’ travel, I found myself, one gorgeous summerevening, resting by the side of a broad river, with a glorious horse-chestnuttree towering above me, and dropping its blossoms, milk-white and rosy-red, allabout me. As I sat, a gush of joy sprang forth in my heart, and over flowed atmy eyes.

Through my tears, the whole landscape glimmered in such bewildering loveliness,that I felt as if I were entering Fairy Land for the first time, and someloving hand were waiting to cool my head, and a loving word to warm my heart.Roses, wild roses, everywhere! So plentiful were they, they not only perfumedthe air, they seemed to dye it a faint rose-hue. The colour floated abroad withthe scent, and clomb, and spread, until the whole west blushed and glowed withthe gathered incense of roses. And my heart fainted with longing in my bosom.

Could I but see the Spirit of the Earth, as I saw once the indwelling woman ofthe beech-tree, and my beauty of the pale marble, I should be content.Content!—Oh, how gladly would I die of the light of her eyes! Yea, Iwould cease to be, if that would bring me one word of love from the one mouth.The twilight sank around, and infolded me with sleep. I slept as I had notslept for months. I did not awake till late in the morning; when, refreshed inbody and mind, I rose as from the death that wipes out the sadness of life, andthen dies itself in the new morrow. Again I followed the stream; now climbing asteep rocky bank that hemmed it in; now wading through long grasses and wildflowers in its path; now through meadows; and anon through woods that crowdeddown to the very lip of the water.

At length, in a nook of the river, gloomy with the weight of overhangingfoliage, and still and deep as a soul in which the torrent eddies of pain havehollowed a great gulf, and then, subsiding in violence, have left it full of amotionless, fathomless sorrow—I saw a little boat lying. So still was thewater here, that the boat needed no fastening. It lay as if some one had juststepped ashore, and would in a moment return. But as there were no signs ofpresence, and no track through the thick bushes; and, moreover, as I was inFairy Land where one does very much as he pleases, I forced my way to thebrink, stepped into the boat, pushed it, with the help of the tree-branches,out into the stream, lay down in the bottom, and let my boat and me floatwhither the stream would carry us. I seemed to lose myself in the great flow ofsky above me unbroken in its infinitude, except when now and then, comingnearer the shore at a bend in the river, a tree would sweep its mighty headsilently above mine, and glide away back into the past, never more to fling itsshadow over me. I fell asleep in this cradle, in which mother Nature wasrocking her weary child; and while I slept, the sun slept not, but went roundhis arched way. When I awoke, he slept in the waters, and I went on my silentpath beneath a round silvery moon. And a pale moon looked up from the floor ofthe great blue cave that lay in the abysmal silence beneath.

Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call the reality?—not sogrand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier? Fair as is the glidingsloop on the shining sea, the wavering, trembling, unresting sail below isfairer still. Yea, the reflecting ocean itself, reflected in the mirror, has awondrousness about its waters that somewhat vanishes when I turn towardsitself. All mirrors are magic mirrors. The commonest room is a room in a poemwhen I turn to the glass. (And this reminds me, while I write, of a strangestory which I read in the fairy palace, and of which I will try to make afeeble memorial in its place.) In whatever way it may be accounted for, of onething we may be sure, that this feeling is no cheat; for there is no cheatingin nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truthinvolved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning. Even thememories of past pain are beautiful; and past delights, though beheld onlythrough clefts in the grey clouds of sorrow, are lovely as Fairy Land. But howhave I wandered into the deeper fairyland of the soul, while as yet I onlyfloat towards the fairy palace of Fairy Land! The moon, which is the loveliermemory or reflex of the down-gone sun, the joyous day seen in the faint mirrorof the brooding night, had rapt me away.

I sat up in the boat. Gigantic forest trees were about me; through which, likea silver snake, twisted and twined the great river. The little waves, when Imoved in the boat, heaved and fell with a plash as of molten silver, breakingthe image of the moon into a thousand morsels, fusing again into one, as theripples of laughter die into the still face of joy. The sleeping woods, inundefined massiveness; the water that flowed in its sleep; and, above all, theenchantress moon, which had cast them all, with her pale eye, into the charmedslumber, sank into my soul, and I felt as if I had died in a dream, and shouldnever more awake.

From this I was partly aroused by a glimmering of white, that, through thetrees on the left, vaguely crossed my vision, as I gazed upwards. But the treesagain hid the object; and at the moment, some strange melodious bird took upits song, and sang, not an ordinary bird-song, with constant repetitions of thesame melody, but what sounded like a continuous strain, in which one thoughtwas expressed, deepening in intensity as evolved in progress. It sounded like awelcome already overshadowed with the coming farewell. As in all sweetestmusic, a tinge of sadness was in every note. Nor do we know how much of thepleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot unfoldthe deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy. Comethwhite-robed Sorrow, stooping and wan, and flingeth wide the doors she may notenter. Almost we linger with Sorrow for very love.

As the song concluded the stream bore my little boat with a gentle sweep rounda bend of the river; and lo! on a broad lawn, which rose from the water’sedge with a long green slope to a clear elevation from which the trees recededon all sides, stood a stately palace glimmering ghostly in the moonshine: itseemed to be built throughout of the whitest marble. There was no reflection ofmoonlight from windows—there seemed to be none; so there was no coldglitter; only, as I said, a ghostly shimmer. Numberless shadows tempered theshine, from column and balcony and tower. For everywhere galleries ran alongthe face of the buildings; wings were extended in many directions; andnumberless openings, through which the moonbeams vanished into the interior,and which served both for doors and windows, had their separate balconies infront, communicating with a common gallery that rose on its own pillars. Ofcourse, I did not discover all this from the river, and in the moonlight. But,though I was there for many days, I did not succeed in mastering the innertopography of the building, so extensive and complicated was it.

Here I wished to land, but the boat had no oars on board. However, I found thata plank, serving for a seat, was unfastened, and with that I brought the boatto the bank and scrambled on shore. Deep soft turf sank beneath my feet, as Iwent up the ascent towards the palace.

When I reached it, I saw that it stood on a great platform of marble, with anascent, by broad stairs of the same, all round it. Arrived on the platform, Ifound there was an extensive outlook over the forest, which, however, wasrather veiled than revealed by the moonlight.

Entering by a wide gateway, but without gates, into an inner court, surroundedon all sides by great marble pillars supporting galleries above, I saw a largefountain of porphyry in the middle, throwing up a lofty column of water, whichfell, with a noise as of the fusion of all sweet sounds, into a basin beneath;overflowing which, it ran into a single channel towards the interior of thebuilding. Although the moon was by this time so low in the west, that not a rayof her light fell into the court, over the height of the surrounding buildings;yet was the court lighted by a second reflex from the sun of other lands. Forthe top of the column of water, just as it spread to fall, caught themoonbeams, and like a great pale lamp, hung high in the night air, threw a dimmemory of light (as it were) over the court below. This court was paved indiamonds of white and red marble. According to my custom since I entered FairyLand, of taking for a guide whatever I first found moving in any direction, Ifollowed the stream from the basin of the fountain. It led me to a great opendoor, beneath the ascending steps of which it ran through a low arch anddisappeared. Entering here, I found myself in a great hall, surrounded withwhite pillars, and paved with black and white. This I could see by themoonlight, which, from the other side, streamed through open windows into thehall.

Its height I could not distinctly see. As soon as I entered, I had the feelingso common to me in the woods, that there were others there besides myself,though I could see no one, and heard no sound to indicate a presence. Since myvisit to the Church of Darkness, my power of seeing the fairies of the higherorders had gradually diminished, until it had almost ceased. But I couldfrequently believe in their presence while unable to see them. Still, althoughI had company, and doubtless of a safe kind, it seemed rather dreary to spendthe night in an empty marble hall, however beautiful, especially as the moonwas near the going down, and it would soon be dark. So I began at the placewhere I entered, and walked round the hall, looking for some door or passagethat might lead me to a more hospitable chamber. As I walked, I was deliciouslyhaunted with the feeling that behind some one of the seemingly innumerablepillars, one who loved me was waiting for me. Then I thought she was followingme from pillar to pillar as I went along; but no arms came out of the faintmoonlight, and no sigh assured me of her presence.

At length I came to an open corridor, into which I turned; notwithstandingthat, in doing so, I left the light behind. Along this I walked withoutstretched hands, groping my way, till, arriving at another corridor, whichseemed to strike off at right angles to that in which I was, I saw at the end afaintly glimmering light, too pale even for moonshine, resembling rather astray phosphorescence. However, where everything was white, a little light wenta great way. So I walked on to the end, and a long corridor it was. When I cameup to the light, I found that it proceeded from what looked like silver lettersupon a door of ebony; and, to my surprise even in the home of wonder itself,the letters formed the words, The Chamber of Sir Anodos. Although I hadas yet no right to the honours of a knight, I ventured to conclude that thechamber was indeed intended for me; and, opening the door without hesitation, Ientered. Any doubt as to whether I was right in so doing, was soon dispelled.What to my dark eyes seemed a blaze of light, burst upon me. A fire of largepieces of some sweet-scented wood, supported by dogs of silver, was burning onthe hearth, and a bright lamp stood on a table, in the midst of a plentifulmeal, apparently awaiting my arrival. But what surprised me more than all, was,that the room was in every respect a copy of my own room, the room whence thelittle stream from my basin had led me into Fairy Land. There was the verycarpet of grass and moss and daisies, which I had myself designed; the curtainsof pale blue silk, that fell like a cataract over the windows; theold-fashioned bed, with the chintz furniture, on which I had slept fromboyhood. “Now I shall sleep,” I said to myself. “My shadowdares not come here.”

I sat down to the table, and began to help myself to the good things before mewith confidence. And now I found, as in many instances before, how true thefairy tales are; for I was waited on, all the time of my meal, by invisiblehands. I had scarcely to do more than look towards anything I wanted, when itwas brought me, just as if it had come to me of itself. My glass was keptfilled with the wine I had chosen, until I looked towards another bottle ordecanter; when a fresh glass was substituted, and the other wine supplied. WhenI had eaten and drank more heartily and joyfully than ever since I enteredFairy Land, the whole was removed by several attendants, of whom some were maleand some female, as I thought I could distinguish from the way the dishes werelifted from the table, and the motion with which they were carried out of theroom. As soon as they were all taken away, I heard a sound as of the shuttingof a door, and knew that I was left alone. I sat long by the fire, meditating,and wondering how it would all end; and when at length, wearied with thinking,I betook myself to my own bed, it was half with a hope that, when I awoke inthe morning, I should awake not only in my own room, but in my own castle also;and that I should walk, out upon my own native soil, and find that Fairy Landwas, after all, only a vision of the night. The sound of the falling waters ofthe fountain floated me into oblivion.

CHAPTER XI

“A wilderness of building, sinking far
And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth,
Far sinking into splendour—without end:
Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold,
With alabaster domes, and silver spires,
And blazing terrace upon terrace, high
Uplifted.”
          WORDSWORTH.

But when, after a sleep, which, although dreamless, yet left behind it a senseof past blessedness, I awoke in the full morning, I found, indeed, that theroom was still my own; but that it looked abroad upon an unknown landscape offorest and hill and dale on the one side—and on the other, upon themarble court, with the great fountain, the crest of which now flashed gloriousin the sun, and cast on the pavement beneath a shower of faint shadows from thewaters that fell from it into the marble basin below.

Agreeably to all authentic accounts of the treatment of travellers in FairyLand, I found by my bedside a complete suit of fresh clothing, just such as Iwas in the habit of wearing; for, though varied sufficiently from the oneremoved, it was yet in complete accordance with my tastes. I dressed myself inthis, and went out. The whole palace shone like silver in the sun. The marblewas partly dull and partly polished; and every pinnacle, dome, and turret endedin a ball, or cone, or cusp of silver. It was like frost-work, and toodazzling, in the sun, for earthly eyes like mine.

I will not attempt to describe the environs, save by saying, that all thepleasures to be found in the most varied and artistic arrangement of wood andriver, lawn and wild forest, garden and shrubbery, rocky hill and luxuriousvale; in living creatures wild and tame, in gorgeous birds, scatteredfountains, little streams, and reedy lakes—all were here. Some parts ofthe palace itself I shall have occasion to describe more minutely.

For this whole morning I never thought of my demon shadow; and not till theweariness which supervened on delight brought it again to my memory, did I lookround to see if it was behind me: it was scarcely discernible. But itspresence, however faintly revealed, sent a pang to my heart, for the pain ofwhich, not all the beauties around me could compensate. It was followed,however, by the comforting reflection that, peradventure, I might here find themagic word of power to banish the demon and set me free, so that I should nolonger be a man beside myself. The Queen of Fairy Land, thought I, must dwellhere: surely she will put forth her power to deliver me, and send me singingthrough the further gates of her country back to my own land. “Shadow ofme!” I said; “which art not me, but which representest thyself tome as me; here I may find a shadow of light which will devour thee, the shadowof darkness! Here I may find a blessing which will fall on thee as a curse, anddamn thee to the blackness whence thou hast emerged unbidden.” I saidthis, stretched at length on the slope of the lawn above the river; and as thehope arose within me, the sun came forth from a light fleecy cloud that sweptacross his face; and hill and dale, and the great river winding on through thestill mysterious forest, flashed back his rays as with a silent shout of joy;all nature lived and glowed; the very earth grew warm beneath me; a magnificentdragon-fly went past me like an arrow from a bow, and a whole concert of birdsburst into choral song.

The heat of the sun soon became too intense even for passive support. Itherefore rose, and sought the shelter of one of the arcades. Wandering alongfrom one to another of these, wherever my heedless steps led me, and wonderingeverywhere at the simple magnificence of the building, I arrived at anotherhall, the roof of which was of a pale blue, spangled with constellations ofsilver stars, and supported by porphyry pillars of a paler red thanordinary.—In this house (I may remark in passing), silver seemedeverywhere preferred to gold; and such was the purity of the air, that itshowed nowhere signs of tarnishing.—The whole of the floor of this hall,except a narrow path behind the pillars, paved with black, was hollowed into ahuge basin, many feet deep, and filled with the purest, most liquid and radiantwater. The sides of the basin were white marble, and the bottom was paved withall kinds of refulgent stones, of every shape and hue.

In their arrangement, you would have supposed, at first sight, that there wasno design, for they seemed to lie as if cast there from careless and playfulhands; but it was a most harmonious confusion; and as I looked at the play oftheir colours, especially when the waters were in motion, I came at last tofeel as if not one little pebble could be displaced, without injuring theeffect of the whole. Beneath this floor of the water, lay the reflection of theblue inverted roof, fretted with its silver stars, like a second deeper sea,clasping and upholding the first. The fairy bath was probably fed from thefountain in the court. Led by an irresistible desire, I undressed, and plungedinto the water. It clothed me as with a new sense and its object both in one.The waters lay so close to me, they seemed to enter and revive my heart. I roseto the surface, shook the water from my hair, and swam as in a rainbow, amidthe coruscations of the gems below seen through the agitation caused by mymotion. Then, with open eyes, I dived, and swam beneath the surface. And herewas a new wonder. For the basin, thus beheld, appeared to extend on all sideslike a sea, with here and there groups as of ocean rocks, hollowed by ceaselessbillows into wondrous caves and grotesque pinnacles. Around the caves grewsea-weeds of all hues, and the corals glowed between; while far off, I saw theglimmer of what seemed to be creatures of human form at home in the waters. Ithought I had been enchanted; and that when I rose to the surface, I shouldfind myself miles from land, swimming alone upon a heaving sea; but when myeyes emerged from the waters, I saw above me the blue spangled vault, and thered pillars around. I dived again, and found myself once more in the heart of agreat sea. I then arose, and swam to the edge, where I got out easily, for thewater reached the very brim, and, as I drew near washed in tiny waves over theblack marble border. I dressed, and went out, deeply refreshed.

And now I began to discern faint, gracious forms, here and there throughout thebuilding. Some walked together in earnest conversation. Others strayed alone.Some stood in groups, as if looking at and talking about a picture or a statue.None of them heeded me. Nor were they plainly visible to my eyes. Sometimes agroup, or single individual, would fade entirely out of the realm of my visionas I gazed. When evening came, and the moon arose, clear as a round of ahorizon-sea when the sun hangs over it in the west, I began to see them allmore plainly; especially when they came between me and the moon; and yet moreespecially, when I myself was in the shade. But, even then, I sometimes sawonly the passing wave of a white robe; or a lovely arm or neck gleamed by inthe moonshine; or white feet went walking alone over the moony sward. Nor, Igrieve to say, did I ever come much nearer to these glorious beings, or everlook upon the Queen of the Fairies herself. My destiny ordered otherwise.

In this palace of marble and silver, and fountains and moonshine, I spent manydays; waited upon constantly in my room with everything desirable, and bathingdaily in the fairy bath. All this time I was little troubled with my demonshadow I had a vague feeling that he was somewhere about the palace; but itseemed as if the hope that I should in this place be finally freed from hishated presence, had sufficed to banish him for a time. How and where I foundhim, I shall soon have to relate.

The third day after my arrival, I found the library of the palace; and here,all the time I remained, I spent most of the middle of the day. For it was, notto mention far greater attractions, a luxurious retreat from the noontide sun.During the mornings and afternoons, I wandered about the lovely neighbourhood,or lay, lost in delicious day-dreams, beneath some mighty tree on the openlawn. My evenings were by-and-by spent in a part of the palace, the account ofwhich, and of my adventures in connection with it, I must yet postpone for alittle.

The library was a mighty hall, lighted from the roof, which was formed ofsomething like glass, vaulted over in a single piece, and stained throughoutwith a great mysterious picture in gorgeous colouring.

The walls were lined from floor to roof with books and books: most of them inancient bindings, but some in strange new fashions which I had never seen, andwhich, were I to make the attempt, I could ill describe. All around the walls,in front of the books, ran galleries in rows, communicating by stairs. Thesegalleries were built of all kinds of coloured stones; all sorts of marble andgranite, with porphyry, jasper, lapis lazuli, agate, and various others, wereranged in wonderful melody of successive colours. Although the material, then,of which these galleries and stairs were built, rendered necessary a certaindegree of massiveness in the construction, yet such was the size of the place,that they seemed to run along the walls like cords.

Over some parts of the library, descended curtains of silk of various dyes,none of which I ever saw lifted while I was there; and I felt somehow that itwould be presumptuous in me to venture to look within them. But the use of theother books seemed free; and day after day I came to the library, threw myselfon one of the many sumptuous eastern carpets, which lay here and there on thefloor, and read, and read, until weary; if that can be designated as weariness,which was rather the faintness of rapturous delight; or until, sometimes, thefailing of the light invited me to go abroad, in the hope that a cool gentlebreeze might have arisen to bathe, with an airy invigorating bath, the limbswhich the glow of the burning spirit within had withered no less than the glowof the blazing sun without.

One peculiarity of these books, or at least most of those I looked into, I mustmake a somewhat vain attempt to describe.

If, for instance, it was a book of metaphysics I opened, I had scarcely readtwo pages before I seemed to myself to be pondering over discovered truth, andconstructing the intellectual machine whereby to communicate the discovery tomy fellow men. With some books, however, of this nature, it seemed rather as ifthe process was removed yet a great way further back; and I was trying to findthe root of a manifestation, the spiritual truth whence a material visionsprang; or to combine two propositions, both apparently true, either at once orin different remembered moods, and to find the point in which their invisiblyconverging lines would unite in one, revealing a truth higher than either anddiffering from both; though so far from being opposed to either, that it wasthat whence each derived its life and power. Or if the book was one of travels,I found myself the traveller. New lands, fresh experiences, novel customs, rosearound me. I walked, I discovered, I fought, I suffered, I rejoiced in mysuccess. Was it a history? I was the chief actor therein. I suffered my ownblame; I was glad in my own praise. With a fiction it was the same. Mine wasthe whole story. For I took the place of the character who was most likemyself, and his story was mine; until, grown weary with the life of yearscondensed in an hour, or arrived at my deathbed, or the end of the volume, Iwould awake, with a sudden bewilderment, to the consciousness of my presentlife, recognising the walls and roof around me, and finding I joyed or sorrowedonly in a book. If the book was a poem, the words disappeared, or took thesubordinate position of an accompaniment to the succession of forms and imagesthat rose and vanished with a soundless rhythm, and a hidden rime.

In one, with a mystical title, which I cannot recall, I read of a world that isnot like ours. The wondrous account, in such a feeble, fragmentary way as ispossible to me, I would willingly impart. Whether or not it was all a poem, Icannot tell; but, from the impulse I felt, when I first contemplated writingit, to break into rime, to which impulse I shall give way if it comes upon meagain, I think it must have been, partly at least, in verse.

CHAPTER XII

“Chained is the Spring. The night-wind bold
    Blows over the hard earth;
Time is not more confused and cold,
    Nor keeps more wintry mirth.

“Yet blow, and roll the world about;
    Blow, Time—blow, winter’s Wind!
Through chinks of Time, heaven peepeth out,
    And Spring the frost behind.”
          G. E. M.

They who believe in the influences of the stars over the fates of men, are, infeeling at least, nearer the truth than they who regard the heavenly bodies asrelated to them merely by a common obedience to an external law. All that mansees has to do with man. Worlds cannot be without an intermundane relationship.The community of the centre of all creation suggests an interradiatingconnection and dependence of the parts. Else a grander idea is conceivable thanthat which is already imbodied. The blank, which is only a forgotten life,lying behind the consciousness, and the misty splendour, which is anundeveloped life, lying before it, may be full of mysterious revelations ofother connexions with the worlds around us, than those of science and poetry.No shining belt or gleaming moon, no red and green glory in a self-encirclingtwin-star, but has a relation with the hidden things of a man’s soul,and, it may be, with the secret history of his body as well. They are portionsof the living house wherein he abides.

Through the realms of the monarch Sun
Creeps a world, whose course had begun,
On a weary path with a weary pace,
Before the Earth sprang forth on her race:
But many a time the Earth had sped
Around the path she still must tread,
Ere the elder planet, on leaden wing,
Once circled the court of the planet’s king.

There, in that lonely and distant star,
The seasons are not as our seasons are;
But many a year hath Autumn to dress
The trees in their matron loveliness;
As long hath old Winter in triumph to go
O’er beauties dead in his vaults below;
And many a year the Spring doth wear
Combing the icicles from her hair;
And Summer, dear Summer, hath years of June,
With large white clouds, and cool showers at noon:
And a beauty that grows to a weight like grief,
Till a burst of tears is the heart’s relief.

Children, born when Winter is king,
May never rejoice in the hoping Spring;
Though their own heart-buds are bursting with joy,
And the child hath grown to the girl or boy;
But may die with cold and icy hours
Watching them ever in place of flowers.
And some who awake from their primal sleep,
When the sighs of Summer through forests creep,
Live, and love, and are loved again;
Seek for pleasure, and find its pain;
Sink to their last, their forsaken sleeping,
With the same sweet odours around them creeping.

Now the children, there, are not born as the children are born in worlds nearerto the sun. For they arrive no one knows how. A maiden, walking alone, hears acry: for even there a cry is the first utterance; and searching about, shefindeth, under an overhanging rock, or within a clump of bushes, or, it may be,betwixt gray stones on the side of a hill, or in any other sheltered andunexpected spot, a little child. This she taketh tenderly, and beareth homewith joy, calling out, “Mother, mother”—if so be that hermother lives—“I have got a baby—I have found a child!”All the household gathers round to see;—“Where is it? What is itlike? Where did you find it?” and such-like questions, abounding. Andthereupon she relates the whole story of the discovery; for by thecircumstances, such as season of the year, time of the day, condition of theair, and such like, and, especially, the peculiar and never-repeated aspect ofthe heavens and earth at the time, and the nature of the place of shelterwherein it is found, is determined, or at least indicated, the nature of thechild thus discovered. Therefore, at certain seasons, and in certain states ofthe weather, according, in part, to their own fancy, the young women go out tolook for children. They generally avoid seeking them, though they cannot helpsometimes finding them, in places and with circumstances uncongenial to theirpeculiar likings. But no sooner is a child found, than its claim for protectionand nurture obliterates all feeling of choice in the matter. Chiefly, however,in the season of summer, which lasts so long, coming as it does after such longintervals; and mostly in the warm evenings, about the middle of twilight; andprincipally in the woods and along the river banks, do the maidens go lookingfor children just as children look for flowers. And ever as the child grows,yea, more and more as he advances in years, will his face indicate to those whounderstand the spirit of Nature, and her utterances in the face of the world,the nature of the place of his birth, and the other circumstances thereof;whether a clear morning sun guided his mother to the nook whence issued theboy’s low cry; or at eve the lonely maiden (for the same woman neverfinds a second, at least while the first lives) discovers the girl by theglimmer of her white skin, lying in a nest like that of the lark, amid longencircling grasses, and the upward-gazing eyes of the lowly daisies; whetherthe storm bowed the forest trees around, or the still frost fixed in silencethe else flowing and babbling stream.

After they grow up, the men and women are but little together. There is thispeculiar difference between them, which likewise distinguishes the women fromthose of the earth. The men alone have arms; the women have only wings.Resplendent wings are they, wherein they can shroud themselves from head tofoot in a panoply of glistering glory. By these wings alone, it may frequentlybe judged in what seasons, and under what aspects, they were born. From thosethat came in winter, go great white wings, white as snow; the edge of everyfeather shining like the sheen of silver, so that they flash and glitter likefrost in the sun. But underneath, they are tinged with a faint pink orrose-colour. Those born in spring have wings of a brilliant green, green asgrass; and towards the edges the feathers are enamelled like the surface of thegrass-blades. These again are white within. Those that are born in summer havewings of a deep rose-colour, lined with pale gold. And those born in autumnhave purple wings, with a rich brown on the inside. But these colours aremodified and altered in all varieties, corresponding to the mood of the day andhour, as well as the season of the year; and sometimes I found the variouscolours so intermingled, that I could not determine even the season, thoughdoubtless the hieroglyphic could be deciphered by more experienced eyes. Onesplendour, in particular, I remember—wings of deep carmine, with an innerdown of warm gray, around a form of brilliant whiteness.

She had been found as the sun went down through a low sea-fog, casting crimsonalong a broad sea-path into a little cave on the shore, where a bathing maidensaw her lying.

But though I speak of sun and fog, and sea and shore, the world there is insome respects very different from the earth whereon men live. For instance, thewaters reflect no forms. To the unaccustomed eye they appear, if undisturbed,like the surface of a dark metal, only that the latter would reflectindistinctly, whereas they reflect not at all, except light which fallsimmediately upon them. This has a great effect in causing the landscapes todiffer from those on the earth. On the stillest evening, no tall ship on thesea sends a long wavering reflection almost to the feet of him on shore; theface of no maiden brightens at its own beauty in a still forest-well. The sunand moon alone make a glitter on the surface. The sea is like a sea of death,ready to ingulf and never to reveal: a visible shadow of oblivion. Yet thewomen sport in its waters like gorgeous sea-birds. The men more rarely enterthem. But, on the contrary, the sky reflects everything beneath it, as if itwere built of water like ours. Of course, from its concavity there is somedistortion of the reflected objects; yet wondrous combinations of form areoften to be seen in the overhanging depth. And then it is not shaped so muchlike a round dome as the sky of the earth, but, more of an egg-shape, rises toa great towering height in the middle, appearing far more lofty than the other.When the stars come out at night, it shows a mighty cupola, “fretted withgolden fires,” wherein there is room for all tempests to rush and rave.

One evening in early summer, I stood with a group of men and women on a steeprock that overhung the sea. They were all questioning me about my world and theways thereof. In making reply to one of their questions, I was compelled to saythat children are not born in the Earth as with them. Upon this I was assailedwith a whole battery of inquiries, which at first I tried to avoid; but, atlast, I was compelled, in the vaguest manner I could invent, to make someapproach to the subject in question. Immediately a dim notion of what I meant,seemed to dawn in the minds of most of the women. Some of them folded theirgreat wings all around them, as they generally do when in the least offended,and stood erect and motionless. One spread out her rosy pinions, and flashedfrom the promontory into the gulf at its foot. A great light shone in the eyesof one maiden, who turned and walked slowly away, with her purple and whitewings half dispread behind her. She was found, the next morning, dead beneath awithered tree on a bare hill-side, some miles inland. They buried her where shelay, as is their custom; for, before they die, they instinctively search for aspot like the place of their birth, and having found one that satisfies them,they lie down, fold their wings around them, if they be women, or cross theirarms over their breasts, if they are men, just as if they were going to sleep;and so sleep indeed. The sign or cause of coming death is an indescribablelonging for something, they know not what, which seizes them, and drives theminto solitude, consuming them within, till the body fails. When a youth and amaiden look too deep into each other’s eyes, this longing seizes andpossesses them; but instead of drawing nearer to each other, they wander away,each alone, into solitary places, and die of their desire. But it seems to me,that thereafter they are born babes upon our earth: where, if, when grown, theyfind each other, it goes well with them; if not, it will seem to go ill. But ofthis I know nothing. When I told them that the women on the Earth had not wingslike them, but arms, they stared, and said how bold and masculine they mustlook; not knowing that their wings, glorious as they are, are but undevelopedarms.

But see the power of this book, that, while recounting what I can recall of itscontents, I write as if myself had visited the far-off planet, learned its waysand appearances, and conversed with its men and women. And so, while writing,it seemed to me that I had.

The book goes on with the story of a maiden, who, born at the close of autumn,and living in a long, to her endless winter, set out at last to find theregions of spring; for, as in our earth, the seasons are divided over theglobe. It begins something like this:

She watched them dying for many a day,
Dropping from off the old trees away,
One by one; or else in a shower
Crowding over the withered flower
For as if they had done some grievous wrong,
The sun, that had nursed them and loved them so long,
Grew weary of loving, and, turning back,
Hastened away on his southern track;
And helplessly hung each shrivelled leaf,
Faded away with an idle grief.
And the gusts of wind, sad Autumn’s sighs,
Mournfully swept through their families;
Casting away with a helpless moan
All that he yet might call his own,
As the child, when his bird is gone for ever,
Flingeth the cage on the wandering river.
And the giant trees, as bare as Death,
Slowly bowed to the great Wind’s breath;
And groaned with trying to keep from groaning
Amidst the young trees bending and moaning.
And the ancient planet’s mighty sea
Was heaving and falling most restlessly,
And the tops of the waves were broken and white,
Tossing about to ease their might;
And the river was striving to reach the main,
And the ripple was hurrying back again.
Nature lived in sadness now;
Sadness lived on the maiden’s brow,
As she watched, with a fixed, half-conscious eye,
One lonely leaf that trembled on high,
Till it dropped at last from the desolate bough—
Sorrow, oh, sorrow! ‘tis winter now.
And her tears gushed forth, though it was but a leaf,
For little will loose the swollen fountain of grief:
When up to the lip the water goes,
It needs but a drop, and it overflows.

Oh! many and many a dreary year
Must pass away ere the buds appear:
Many a night of darksome sorrow
Yield to the light of a joyless morrow,
Ere birds again, on the clothed trees,
Shall fill the branches with melodies.
She will dream of meadows with wakeful streams;
Of wavy grass in the sunny beams;
Of hidden wells that soundless spring,
Hoarding their joy as a holy thing;
Of founts that tell it all day long
To the listening woods, with exultant song;
She will dream of evenings that die into nights,
Where each sense is filled with its own delights,
And the soul is still as the vaulted sky,
Lulled with an inner harmony;

And the flowers give out to the dewy night,
Changed into perfume, the gathered light;
And the darkness sinks upon all their host,
Till the sun sail up on the eastern coast—
She will wake and see the branches bare,
Weaving a net in the frozen air.

The story goes on to tell how, at last, weary with wintriness, she travelledtowards the southern regions of her globe, to meet the spring on its slow waynorthwards; and how, after many sad adventures, many disappointed hopes, andmany tears, bitter and fruitless, she found at last, one stormy afternoon, in aleafless forest, a single snowdrop growing betwixt the borders of the winterand spring. She lay down beside it and died. I almost believe that a child,pale and peaceful as a snowdrop, was born in the Earth within a fixed seasonfrom that stormy afternoon.

CHAPTER XIII

“I saw a ship sailing upon the sea
Deeply laden as ship could be;
But not so deep as in love I am
For I care not whether I sink or swim.”
          OLDBALLAD.

“But Love is such a Mystery
    I cannot find it out:
For when I think I’m best resolv’d,
    I then am in most doubt.”
          SIRJOHNSUCKLING.

One story I will try to reproduce. But, alas! it is like trying to reconstructa forest out of broken branches and withered leaves. In the fairy book,everything was just as it should be, though whether in words or something else,I cannot tell. It glowed and flashed the thoughts upon the soul, with such apower that the medium disappeared from the consciousness, and it was occupiedonly with the things themselves. My representation of it must resemble atranslation from a rich and powerful language, capable of embodying thethoughts of a splendidly developed people, into the meagre and half-articulatespeech of a savage tribe. Of course, while I read it, I was Cosmo, and hishistory was mine. Yet, all the time, I seemed to have a kind of doubleconsciousness, and the story a double meaning. Sometimes it seemed only torepresent a simple story of ordinary life, perhaps almost of universal life;wherein two souls, loving each other and longing to come nearer, do, after all,but behold each other as in a glass darkly.

As through the hard rock go the branching silver veins; as into the solid landrun the creeks and gulfs from the unresting sea; as the lights and influencesof the upper worlds sink silently through the earth’s atmosphere; so dothFaerie invade the world of men, and sometimes startle the common eye with anassociation as of cause and effect, when between the two no connecting linkscan be traced.

Cosmo von Wehrstahl was a student at the University of Prague. Though of anoble family, he was poor, and prided himself upon the independence thatpoverty gives; for what will not a man pride himself upon, when he cannot getrid of it? A favourite with his fellow students, he yet had no companions; andnone of them had ever crossed the threshold of his lodging in the top of one ofthe highest houses in the old town. Indeed, the secret of much of thatcomplaisance which recommended him to his fellows, was the thought of hisunknown retreat, whither in the evening he could betake himself and indulgeundisturbed in his own studies and reveries. These studies, besides thosesubjects necessary to his course at the University, embraced some less commonlyknown and approved; for in a secret drawer lay the works of Albertus Magnus andCornelius Agrippa, along with others less read and more abstruse. As yet,however, he had followed these researches only from curiosity, and had turnedthem to no practical purpose.

His lodging consisted of one large low-ceiled room, singularly bare offurniture; for besides a couple of wooden chairs, a couch which served fordreaming on both by day and night, and a great press of black oak, there wasvery little in the room that could be called furniture.

But curious instruments were heaped in the corners; and in one stood askeleton, half-leaning against the wall, half-supported by a string about itsneck. One of its hands, all of fingers, rested on the heavy pommel of a greatsword that stood beside it.

Various weapons were scattered about over the floor. The walls were utterlybare of adornment; for the few strange things, such as a large dried bat withwings dispread, the skin of a porcupine, and a stuffed sea-mouse, could hardlybe reckoned as such. But although his fancy delighted in vagaries like these,he indulged his imagination with far different fare. His mind had never yetbeen filled with an absorbing passion; but it lay like a still twilight open toany wind, whether the low breath that wafts but odours, or the storm that bowsthe great trees till they strain and creak. He saw everything as through arose-coloured glass. When he looked from his window on the street below, not amaiden passed but she moved as in a story, and drew his thoughts after her tillshe disappeared in the vista. When he walked in the streets, he always felt asif reading a tale, into which he sought to weave every face of interest thatwent by; and every sweet voice swept his soul as with the wing of a passingangel. He was in fact a poet without words; the more absorbed and endangered,that the springing-waters were dammed back into his soul, where, finding noutterance, they grew, and swelled, and undermined. He used to lie on his hardcouch, and read a tale or a poem, till the book dropped from his hand; but hedreamed on, he knew not whether awake or asleep, until the opposite roof grewupon his sense, and turned golden in the sunrise. Then he arose too; and theimpulses of vigorous youth kept him ever active, either in study or in sport,until again the close of the day left him free; and the world of night, whichhad lain drowned in the cataract of the day, rose up in his soul, with all itsstars, and dim-seen phantom shapes. But this could hardly last long. Some oneform must sooner or later step within the charmed circle, enter the house oflife, and compel the bewildered magician to kneel and worship.

One afternoon, towards dusk, he was wandering dreamily in one of the principalstreets, when a fellow student roused him by a slap on the shoulder, and askedhim to accompany him into a little back alley to look at some old armour whichhe had taken a fancy to possess. Cosmo was considered an authority in everymatter pertaining to arms, ancient or modern. In the use of weapons, none ofthe students could come near him; and his practical acquaintance with some hadprincipally contributed to establish his authority in reference to all. Heaccompanied him willingly.

They entered a narrow alley, and thence a dirty little court, where a lowarched door admitted them into a heterogeneous assemblage of everything musty,and dusty, and old, that could well be imagined. His verdict on the armour wassatisfactory, and his companion at once concluded the purchase. As they wereleaving the place, Cosmo’s eye was attracted by an old mirror of anelliptical shape, which leaned against the wall, covered with dust. Around itwas some curious carving, which he could see but very indistinctly by theglimmering light which the owner of the shop carried in his hand. It was thiscarving that attracted his attention; at least so it appeared to him. He leftthe place, however, with his friend, taking no further notice of it. Theywalked together to the main street, where they parted and took oppositedirections.

No sooner was Cosmo left alone, than the thought of the curious old mirrorreturned to him. A strong desire to see it more plainly arose within him, andhe directed his steps once more towards the shop. The owner opened the doorwhen he knocked, as if he had expected him. He was a little, old, withered man,with a hooked nose, and burning eyes constantly in a slow restless motion, andlooking here and there as if after something that eluded them. Pretending toexamine several other articles, Cosmo at last approached the mirror, andrequested to have it taken down.

“Take it down yourself, master; I cannot reach it,” said the oldman.

Cosmo took it down carefully, when he saw that the carving was indeed delicateand costly, being both of admirable design and execution; containing withalmany devices which seemed to embody some meaning to which he had no clue. This,naturally, in one of his tastes and temperament, increased the interest he feltin the old mirror; so much, indeed, that he now longed to possess it, in orderto study its frame at his leisure. He pretended, however, to want it only foruse; and saying he feared the plate could be of little service, as it wasrather old, he brushed away a little of the dust from its face, expecting tosee a dull reflection within. His surprise was great when he found thereflection brilliant, revealing a glass not only uninjured by age, butwondrously clear and perfect (should the whole correspond to this part) evenfor one newly from the hands of the maker. He asked carelessly what the ownerwanted for the thing. The old man replied by mentioning a sum of money farbeyond the reach of poor Cosmo, who proceeded to replace the mirror where ithad stood before.

“You think the price too high?” said the old man.

“I do not know that it is too much for you to ask,” replied Cosmo;“but it is far too much for me to give.”

The old man held up his light towards Cosmo’s face. “I like yourlook,” said he.

Cosmo could not return the compliment. In fact, now he looked closely at himfor the first time, he felt a kind of repugnance to him, mingled with a strangefeeling of doubt whether a man or a woman stood before him.

“What is your name?” he continued.

“Cosmo von Wehrstahl.”

“Ah, ah! I thought as much. I see your father in you. I knew your fathervery well, young sir. I dare say in some odd corners of my house, you mightfind some old things with his crest and cipher upon them still. Well, I likeyou: you shall have the mirror at the fourth part of what I asked for it; butupon one condition.”

“What is that?” said Cosmo; for, although the price was still agreat deal for him to give, he could just manage it; and the desire to possessthe mirror had increased to an altogether unaccountable degree, since it hadseemed beyond his reach.

“That if you should ever want to get rid of it again, you will let mehave the first offer.”

“Certainly,” replied Cosmo, with a smile; adding, “a moderatecondition indeed.”

“On your honour?” insisted the seller.

“On my honour,” said the buyer; and the bargain was concluded.

“I will carry it home for you,” said the old man, as Cosmo took itin his hands.

“No, no; I will carry it myself,” said he; for he had a peculiardislike to revealing his residence to any one, and more especially to thisperson, to whom he felt every moment a greater antipathy. “Just as youplease,” said the old creature, and muttered to himself as he held hislight at the door to show him out of the court: “Sold for the sixth time!I wonder what will be the upshot of it this time. I should think my lady hadenough of it by now!”

Cosmo carried his prize carefully home. But all the way he had an uncomfortablefeeling that he was watched and dogged. Repeatedly he looked about, but sawnothing to justify his suspicions. Indeed, the streets were too crowded and tooill lighted to expose very readily a careful spy, if such there should be athis heels. He reached his lodging in safety, and leaned his purchase againstthe wall, rather relieved, strong as he was, to be rid of its weight; then,lighting his pipe, threw himself on the couch, and was soon lapt in the foldsof one of his haunting dreams.

He returned home earlier than usual the next day, and fixed the mirror to thewall, over the hearth, at one end of his long room.

He then carefully wiped away the dust from its face, and, clear as the water ofa sunny spring, the mirror shone out from beneath the envious covering. But hisinterest was chiefly occupied with the curious carving of the frame. This hecleaned as well as he could with a brush; and then he proceeded to a minuteexamination of its various parts, in the hope of discovering some index to theintention of the carver. In this, however, he was unsuccessful; and, at length,pausing with some weariness and disappointment, he gazed vacantly for a fewmoments into the depth of the reflected room. But ere long he said, half aloud:“What a strange thing a mirror is! and what a wondrous affinity existsbetween it and a man’s imagination! For this room of mine, as I behold itin the glass, is the same, and yet not the same. It is not the mererepresentation of the room I live in, but it looks just as if I were readingabout it in a story I like. All its commonness has disappeared. The mirror haslifted it out of the region of fact into the realm of art; and the veryrepresenting of it to me has clothed with interest that which was otherwisehard and bare; just as one sees with delight upon the stage the representationof a character from which one would escape in life as from somethingunendurably wearisome. But is it not rather that art rescues nature from theweary and sated regards of our senses, and the degrading injustice of ouranxious everyday life, and, appealing to the imagination, which dwells apart,reveals Nature in some degree as she really is, and as she represents herselfto the eye of the child, whose every-day life, fearless and unambitious, meetsthe true import of the wonder-teeming world around him, and rejoices thereinwithout questioning? That skeleton, now—I almost fear it, standing thereso still, with eyes only for the unseen, like a watch-tower looking across allthe waste of this busy world into the quiet regions of rest beyond. And yet Iknow every bone and every joint in it as well as my own fist. And that oldbattle-axe looks as if any moment it might be caught up by a mailed hand, and,borne forth by the mighty arm, go crashing through casque, and skull, andbrain, invading the Unknown with yet another bewildered ghost. I should like tolive in thatroom if I could only get into it.”

Scarcely had the half-moulded words floated from him, as he stood gazing intothe mirror, when, striking him as with a flash of amazement that fixed him inhis posture, noiseless and unannounced, glided suddenly through the door intothe reflected room, with stately motion, yet reluctant and faltering step, thegraceful form of a woman, clothed all in white. Her back only was visible asshe walked slowly up to the couch in the further end of the room, on which shelaid herself wearily, turning towards him a face of unutterable loveliness, inwhich suffering, and dislike, and a sense of compulsion, strangely mingled withthe beauty. He stood without the power of motion for some moments, with hiseyes irrecoverably fixed upon her; and even after he was conscious of theability to move, he could not summon up courage to turn and look on her, faceto face, in the veritable chamber in which he stood. At length, with a suddeneffort, in which the exercise of the will was so pure, that it seemedinvoluntary, he turned his face to the couch. It was vacant. In bewilderment,mingled with terror, he turned again to the mirror: there, on the reflectedcouch, lay the exquisite lady-form. She lay with closed eyes, whence two largetears were just welling from beneath the veiling lids; still as death, save forthe convulsive motion of her bosom.

Cosmo himself could not have described what he felt. His emotions were of akind that destroyed consciousness, and could never be clearly recalled. Hecould not help standing yet by the mirror, and keeping his eyes fixed on thelady, though he was painfully aware of his rudeness, and feared every momentthat she would open hers, and meet his fixed regard. But he was, ere long, alittle relieved; for, after a while, her eyelids slowly rose, and her eyesremained uncovered, but unemployed for a time; and when, at length, they beganto wander about the room, as if languidly seeking to make some acquaintancewith her environment, they were never directed towards him: it seemed nothingbut what was in the mirror could affect her vision; and, therefore, if she sawhim at all, it could only be his back, which, of necessity, was turned towardsher in the glass. The two figures in the mirror could not meet face to face,except he turned and looked at her, present in his room; and, as she was notthere, he concluded that if he were to turn towards the part in his roomcorresponding to that in which she lay, his reflection would either beinvisible to her altogether, or at least it must appear to her to gaze vacantlytowards her, and no meeting of the eyes would produce the impression ofspiritual proximity. By-and-by her eyes fell upon the skeleton, and he saw hershudder and close them. She did not open them again, but signs of repugnancecontinued evident on her countenance. Cosmo would have removed the obnoxiousthing at once, but he feared to discompose her yet more by the assertion of hispresence which the act would involve. So he stood and watched her. The eyelidsyet shrouded the eyes, as a costly case the jewels within; the troubledexpression gradually faded from the countenance, leaving only a faint sorrowbehind; the features settled into an unchanging expression of rest; and bythese signs, and the slow regular motion of her breathing, Cosmo knew that sheslept. He could now gaze on her without embarrassment. He saw that her figure,dressed in the simplest robe of white, was worthy of her face; and soharmonious, that either the delicately moulded foot, or any finger of theequally delicate hand, was an index to the whole. As she lay, her whole formmanifested the relaxation of perfect repose. He gazed till he was weary, and atlast seated himself near the new-found shrine, and mechanically took up a book,like one who watches by a sick-bed. But his eyes gathered no thoughts from thepage before him. His intellect had been stunned by the bold contradiction, toits face, of all its experience, and now lay passive, without assertion, orspeculation, or even conscious astonishment; while his imagination sent onewild dream of blessedness after another coursing through his soul. How long hesat he knew not; but at length he roused himself, rose, and, trembling in everyportion of his frame, looked again into the mirror. She was gone. The mirrorreflected faithfully what his room presented, and nothing more. It stood therelike a golden setting whence the central jewel has been stolen away—likea night-sky without the glory of its stars. She had carried with her all thestrangeness of the reflected room. It had sunk to the level of the one without.

But when the first pangs of his disappointment had passed, Cosmo began tocomfort himself with the hope that she might return, perhaps the next evening,at the same hour. Resolving that if she did, she should not at least be scaredby the hateful skeleton, he removed that and several other articles ofquestionable appearance into a recess by the side of the hearth, whence theycould not possibly cast any reflection into the mirror; and having made hispoor room as tidy as he could, sought the solace of the open sky and of a nightwind that had begun to blow, for he could not rest where he was. When hereturned, somewhat composed, he could hardly prevail with himself to lie downon his bed; for he could not help feeling as if she had lain upon it; and forhim to lie there now would be something like sacrilege. However, wearinessprevailed; and laying himself on the couch, dressed as he was, he slept tillday.

With a beating heart, beating till he could hardly breathe, he stood in dumbhope before the mirror, on the following evening. Again the reflected roomshone as through a purple vapour in the gathering twilight. Everything seemedwaiting like himself for a coming splendour to glorify its poor earthlinesswith the presence of a heavenly joy. And just as the room vibrated with thestrokes of the neighbouring church bell, announcing the hour of six, in glidedthe pale beauty, and again laid herself on the couch. Poor Cosmo nearly losthis senses with delight. She was there once more! Her eyes sought the cornerwhere the skeleton had stood, and a faint gleam of satisfaction crossed herface, apparently at seeing it empty. She looked suffering still, but there wasless of discomfort expressed in her countenance than there had been the nightbefore. She took more notice of the things about her, and seemed to gaze withsome curiosity on the strange apparatus standing here and there in her room. Atlength, however, drowsiness seemed to overtake her, and again she fell asleep.Resolved not to lose sight of her this time, Cosmo watched the sleeping form.Her slumber was so deep and absorbing that a fascinating repose seemed to passcontagiously from her to him as he gazed upon her; and he started as if from adream, when the lady moved, and, without opening her eyes, rose, and passedfrom the room with the gait of a somnambulist.

Cosmo was now in a state of extravagant delight. Most men have a secrettreasure somewhere. The miser has his golden hoard; the virtuoso his pet ring;the student his rare book; the poet his favourite haunt; the lover his secretdrawer; but Cosmo had a mirror with a lovely lady in it. And now that he knewby the skeleton, that she was affected by the things around her, he had a newobject in life: he would turn the bare chamber in the mirror into a room suchas no lady need disdain to call her own. This he could effect only byfurnishing and adorning his. And Cosmo was poor. Yet he possessedaccomplishments that could be turned to account; although, hitherto, he hadpreferred living on his slender allowance, to increasing his means by what hispride considered unworthy of his rank. He was the best swordsman in theUniversity; and now he offered to give lessons in fencing and similarexercises, to such as chose to pay him well for the trouble. His proposal washeard with surprise by the students; but it was eagerly accepted by many; andsoon his instructions were not confined to the richer students, but wereanxiously sought by many of the young nobility of Prague and its neighbourhood.So that very soon he had a good deal of money at his command. The first thinghe did was to remove his apparatus and oddities into a closet in the room. Thenhe placed his bed and a few other necessaries on each side of the hearth, andparted them from the rest of the room by two screens of Indian fabric. Then heput an elegant couch for the lady to lie upon, in the corner where his bed hadformerly stood; and, by degrees, every day adding some article of luxury,converted it, at length, into a rich boudoir.

Every night, about the same time, the lady entered. The first time she saw thenew couch, she started with a half-smile; then her face grew very sad, thetears came to her eyes, and she laid herself upon the couch, and pressed herface into the silken cushions, as if to hide from everything. She took noticeof each addition and each change as the work proceeded; and a look ofacknowledgment, as if she knew that some one was ministering to her, and wasgrateful for it, mingled with the constant look of suffering. At length, aftershe had lain down as usual one evening, her eyes fell upon some paintings withwhich Cosmo had just finished adorning the walls. She rose, and to his greatdelight, walked across the room, and proceeded to examine them carefully,testifying much pleasure in her looks as she did so. But again the sorrowful,tearful expression returned, and again she buried her face in the pillows ofher couch. Gradually, however, her countenance had grown more composed; much ofthe suffering manifest on her first appearance had vanished, and a kind ofquiet, hopeful expression had taken its place; which, however, frequently gaveway to an anxious, troubled look, mingled with something of sympathetic pity.

Meantime, how fared Cosmo? As might be expected in one of his temperament, hisinterest had blossomed into love, and his love—shall I call itripened, or—witheredinto passion. But, alas! he loved ashadow. He could not come near her, could not speak to her, could not hear asound from those sweet lips, to which his longing eyes would cling like bees totheir honey-founts. Ever and anon he sang to himself:

“I shall die for love of the maiden;”

and ever he looked again, and died not, though his heart seemed ready to breakwith intensity of life and longing. And the more he did for her, the more heloved her; and he hoped that, although she never appeared to see him, yet shewas pleased to think that one unknown would give his life to her. He tried tocomfort himself over his separation from her, by thinking that perhaps some dayshe would see him and make signs to him, and that would satisfy him;“for,” thought he, “is not this all that a loving soul can doto enter into communion with another? Nay, how many who love never come nearerthan to behold each other as in a mirror; seem to know and yet never know theinward life; never enter the other soul; and part at last, with but the vaguestnotion of the universe on the borders of which they have been hovering foryears? If I could but speak to her, and knew that she heard me, I should besatisfied.” Once he contemplated painting a picture on the wall, whichshould, of necessity, convey to the lady a thought of himself; but, though hehad some skill with the pencil, he found his hand tremble so much when he beganthe attempt, that he was forced to give it up. . . . . .

“Who lives, he dies; who dies, he is alive.”

One evening, as he stood gazing on his treasure, he thought he saw a faintexpression of self-consciousness on her countenance, as if she surmised thatpassionate eyes were fixed upon her. This grew; till at last the red blood roseover her neck, and cheek, and brow. Cosmo’s longing to approach herbecame almost delirious. This night she was dressed in an evening costume,resplendent with diamonds. This could add nothing to her beauty, but itpresented it in a new aspect; enabled her loveliness to make a newmanifestation of itself in a new embodiment. For essential beauty is infinite;and, as the soul of Nature needs an endless succession of varied forms toembody her loveliness, countless faces of beauty springing forth, not any twothe same, at any one of her heart-throbs; so the individual form needs aninfinite change of its environments, to enable it to uncover all the phases ofits loveliness. Diamonds glittered from amidst her hair, half hidden in itsluxuriance, like stars through dark rain-clouds; and the bracelets on her whitearms flashed all the colours of a rainbow of lightnings, as she lifted hersnowy hands to cover her burning face. But her beauty shone down all itsadornment. “If I might have but one of her feet to kiss,” thoughtCosmo, “I should be content.” Alas! he deceived himself, forpassion is never content. Nor did he know that there are twoways out ofher enchanted house. But, suddenly, as if the pang had been driven into hisheart from without, revealing itself first in pain, and afterwards in definiteform, the thought darted into his mind, “She has a lover somewhere.Remembered words of his bring the colour on her face now. I am nowhere to her.She lives in another world all day, and all night, after she leaves me. Whydoes she come and make me love her, till I, a strong man, am too faint to lookupon her more?” He looked again, and her face was pale as a lily. Asorrowful compassion seemed to rebuke the glitter of the restless jewels, andthe slow tears rose in her eyes. She left her room sooner this evening than washer wont. Cosmo remained alone, with a feeling as if his bosom had beensuddenly left empty and hollow, and the weight of the whole world was crushingin its walls. The next evening, for the first time since she began to come, shecame not.

And now Cosmo was in wretched plight. Since the thought of a rival had occurredto him, he could not rest for a moment. More than ever he longed to see thelady face to face. He persuaded himself that if he but knew the worst he wouldbe satisfied; for then he could abandon Prague, and find that relief inconstant motion, which is the hope of all active minds when invaded bydistress. Meantime he waited with unspeakable anxiety for the next night,hoping she would return: but she did not appear. And now he fell really ill.Rallied by his fellow students on his wretched looks, he ceased to attend thelectures. His engagements were neglected. He cared for nothing. The sky, withthe great sun in it, was to him a heartless, burning desert. The men and womenin the streets were mere puppets, without motives in themselves, or interest tohim. He saw them all as on the ever-changing field of a camera obscura.She—she alone and altogether—was his universe, his well of life,his incarnate good. For six evenings she came not. Let his absorbing passion,and the slow fever that was consuming his brain, be his excuse for theresolution which he had taken and begun to execute, before that time hadexpired.

Reasoning with himself, that it must be by some enchantment connected with themirror, that the form of the lady was to be seen in it, he determined toattempt to turn to account what he had hitherto studied principally fromcuriosity. “For,” said he to himself, “if a spell can forceher presence in that glass (and she came unwillingly at first), may not astronger spell, such as I know, especially with the aid of her half-presence inthe mirror, if ever she appears again, compel her living form to come to mehere? If I do her wrong, let love be my excuse. I want only to know my doomfrom her own lips.” He never doubted, all the time, that she was a realearthly woman; or, rather, that there was a woman, who, somehow or other, threwthis reflection of her form into the magic mirror.

He opened his secret drawer, took out his books of magic, lighted his lamp, andread and made notes from midnight till three in the morning, for threesuccessive nights. Then he replaced his books; and the next night went out inquest of the materials necessary for the conjuration. These were not easy tofind; for, in love-charms and all incantations of this nature, ingredients areemployed scarcely fit to be mentioned, and for the thought even of which, inconnexion with her, he could only excuse himself on the score of his bitterneed. At length he succeeded in procuring all he required; and on the seventhevening from that on which she had last appeared, he found himself prepared forthe exercise of unlawful and tyrannical power.

He cleared the centre of the room; stooped and drew a circle of red on thefloor, around the spot where he stood; wrote in the four quarters mysticalsigns, and numbers which were all powers of seven or nine; examined the wholering carefully, to see that no smallest break had occurred in thecircumference; and then rose from his bending posture. As he rose, the churchclock struck seven; and, just as she had appeared the first time, reluctant,slow, and stately, glided in the lady. Cosmo trembled; and when, turning, sherevealed a countenance worn and wan, as with sickness or inward trouble, hegrew faint, and felt as if he dared not proceed. But as he gazed on the faceand form, which now possessed his whole soul, to the exclusion of all otherjoys and griefs, the longing to speak to her, to know that she heard him, tohear from her one word in return, became so unendurable, that he suddenly andhastily resumed his preparations. Stepping carefully from the circle, he put asmall brazier into its centre. He then set fire to its contents of charcoal,and while it burned up, opened his window and seated himself, waiting, besideit.

It was a sultry evening. The air was full of thunder. A sense of luxuriousdepression filled the brain. The sky seemed to have grown heavy, and tocompress the air beneath it. A kind of purplish tinge pervaded the atmosphere,and through the open window came the scents of the distant fields, which allthe vapours of the city could not quench. Soon the charcoal glowed. Cosmosprinkled upon it the incense and other substances which he had compounded,and, stepping within the circle, turned his face from the brazier and towardsthe mirror. Then, fixing his eyes upon the face of the lady, he began with atrembling voice to repeat a powerful incantation. He had not gone far, beforethe lady grew pale; and then, like a returning wave, the blood washed all itsbanks with its crimson tide, and she hid her face in her hands. Then he passedto a conjuration stronger yet.

The lady rose and walked uneasily to and fro in her room. Another spell; andshe seemed seeking with her eyes for some object on which they wished to rest.At length it seemed as if she suddenly espied him; for her eyes fixedthemselves full and wide upon his, and she drew gradually, and somewhatunwillingly, close to her side of the mirror, just as if his eyes hadfascinated her. Cosmo had never seen her so near before. Now at least, eyes meteyes; but he could not quite understand the expression of hers. They were fullof tender entreaty, but there was something more that he could not interpret.Though his heart seemed to labour in his throat, he would allow no delight oragitation to turn him from his task. Looking still in her face, he passed on tothe mightiest charm he knew. Suddenly the lady turned and walked out of thedoor of her reflected chamber. A moment after she entered his room withveritable presence; and, forgetting all his precautions, he sprang from thecharmed circle, and knelt before her. There she stood, the living lady of hispassionate visions, alone beside him, in a thundery twilight, and the glow of amagic fire.

“Why,” said the lady, with a trembling voice, “didst thoubring a poor maiden through the rainy streets alone?”

“Because I am dying for love of thee; but I only brought thee from themirror there.”

“Ah, the mirror!” and she looked up at it, and shuddered.“Alas! I am but a slave, while that mirror exists. But do not think itwas the power of thy spells that drew me; it was thy longing desire to see me,that beat at the door of my heart, till I was forced to yield.”

“Canst thou love me then?” said Cosmo, in a voice calm as death,but almost inarticulate with emotion.

“I do not know,” she replied sadly; “that I cannot tell, solong as I am bewildered with enchantments. It were indeed a joy too great, tolay my head on thy bosom and weep to death; for I think thou lovest me, thoughI do not know;—but——”

Cosmo rose from his knees.

“I love thee as—nay, I know not what—for since I have lovedthee, there is nothing else.”

He seized her hand: she withdrew it.

“No, better not; I am in thy power, and therefore I may not.”

She burst into tears, and kneeling before him in her turn, said—

“Cosmo, if thou lovest me, set me free, even from thyself; break themirror.”

“And shall I see thyself instead?”

“That I cannot tell, I will not deceive thee; we may never meetagain.”

A fierce struggle arose in Cosmo’s bosom. Now she was in his power. Shedid not dislike him at least; and he could see her when he would. To break themirror would be to destroy his very life, to banish out of his universe theonly glory it possessed. The whole world would be but a prison, if heannihilated the one window that looked into the paradise of love. Not yet purein love, he hesitated.

With a wail of sorrow the lady rose to her feet. “Ah! he loves me not; heloves me not even as I love him; and alas! I care more for his love than evenfor the freedom I ask.”

“I will not wait to be willing,” cried Cosmo; and sprang to thecorner where the great sword stood.

Meantime it had grown very dark; only the embers cast a red glow through theroom. He seized the sword by the steel scabbard, and stood before the mirror;but as he heaved a great blow at it with the heavy pommel, the blade slippedhalf-way out of the scabbard, and the pommel struck the wall above the mirror.At that moment, a terrible clap of thunder seemed to burst in the very roombeside them; and ere Cosmo could repeat the blow, he fell senseless on thehearth. When he came to himself, he found that the lady and the mirror had bothdisappeared. He was seized with a brain fever, which kept him to his couch forweeks.

When he recovered his reason, he began to think what could have become of themirror. For the lady, he hoped she had found her way back as she came; but asthe mirror involved her fate with its own, he was more immediately anxiousabout that. He could not think she had carried it away. It was much too heavy,even if it had not been too firmly fixed in the wall, for her to remove it.Then again, he remembered the thunder; which made him believe that it was notthe lightning, but some other blow that had struck him down. He concluded that,either by supernatural agency, he having exposed himself to the vengeance ofthe demons in leaving the circle of safety, or in some other mode, the mirrorhad probably found its way back to its former owner; and, horrible to think of,might have been by this time once more disposed of, delivering up the lady intothe power of another man; who, if he used his power no worse than he himselfhad done, might yet give Cosmo abundant cause to curse the selfish indecisionwhich prevented him from shattering the mirror at once. Indeed, to think thatshe whom he loved, and who had prayed to him for freedom, should be still atthe mercy, in some degree, of the possessor of the mirror, and was at leastexposed to his constant observation, was in itself enough to madden a charylover.

Anxiety to be well retarded his recovery; but at length he was able to creepabroad. He first made his way to the old broker’s, pretending to be insearch of something else. A laughing sneer on the creature’s faceconvinced him that he knew all about it; but he could not see it amongst hisfurniture, or get any information out of him as to what had become of it. Heexpressed the utmost surprise at hearing it had been stolen, a surprise whichCosmo saw at once to be counterfeited; while, at the same time, he fancied thatthe old wretch was not at all anxious to have it mistaken for genuine. Full ofdistress, which he concealed as well as he could, he made many searches, butwith no avail. Of course he could ask no questions; but he kept his ears awakefor any remotest hint that might set him in a direction of search. He neverwent out without a short heavy hammer of steel about him, that he might shatterthe mirror the moment he was made happy by the sight of his lost treasure, ifever that blessed moment should arrive. Whether he should see the lady again,was now a thought altogether secondary, and postponed to the achievement of herfreedom. He wandered here and there, like an anxious ghost, pale and haggard;gnawed ever at the heart, by the thought of what she might besuffering—all from his fault.

One night, he mingled with a crowd that filled the rooms of one of the mostdistinguished mansions in the city; for he accepted every invitation, that hemight lose no chance, however poor, of obtaining some information that mightexpedite his discovery. Here he wandered about, listening to every stray wordthat he could catch, in the hope of a revelation. As he approached some ladieswho were talking quietly in a corner, one said to another:

“Have you heard of the strange illness of the Princess vonHohenweiss?”

“Yes; she has been ill for more than a year now. It is very sad for sofine a creature to have such a terrible malady. She was better for some weekslately, but within the last few days the same attacks have returned, apparentlyaccompanied with more suffering than ever. It is altogether an inexplicablestory.”

“Is there a story connected with her illness?”

“I have only heard imperfect reports of it; but it is said that she gaveoffence some eighteen months ago to an old woman who had held an office oftrust in the family, and who, after some incoherent threats, disappeared. Thispeculiar affection followed soon after. But the strangest part of the story isits association with the loss of an antique mirror, which stood in herdressing-room, and of which she constantly made use.”

Here the speaker’s voice sank to a whisper; and Cosmo, although his verysoul sat listening in his ears, could hear no more. He trembled too much todare to address the ladies, even if it had been advisable to expose himself totheir curiosity. The name of the Princess was well known to him, but he hadnever seen her; except indeed it was she, which now he hardly doubted, who hadknelt before him on that dreadful night. Fearful of attracting attention, for,from the weak state of his health, he could not recover an appearance ofcalmness, he made his way to the open air, and reached his lodgings; glad inthis, that he at least knew where she lived, although he never dreamed ofapproaching her openly, even if he should be happy enough to free her from herhateful bondage. He hoped, too, that as he had unexpectedly learned so much,the other and far more important part might be revealed to him ere long.

“Have you seen Steinwald lately?”

“No, I have not seen him for some time. He is almost a match for me atthe rapier, and I suppose he thinks he needs no more lessons.”

“I wonder what has become of him. I want to see him very much. Let mesee; the last time I saw him he was coming out of that old broker’s den,to which, if you remember, you accompanied me once, to look at some armour.That is fully three weeks ago.”

This hint was enough for Cosmo. Von Steinwald was a man of influence in thecourt, well known for his reckless habits and fierce passions. The verypossibility that the mirror should be in his possession was hell itself toCosmo. But violent or hasty measures of any sort were most unlikely to succeed.All that he wanted was an opportunity of breaking the fatal glass; and toobtain this he must bide his time. He revolved many plans in his mind, butwithout being able to fix upon any.

At length, one evening, as he was passing the house of Von Steinwald, he sawthe windows more than usually brilliant. He watched for a while, and seeingthat company began to arrive, hastened home, and dressed as richly as he could,in the hope of mingling with the guests unquestioned: in effecting which, therecould be no difficulty for a man of his carriage.

In a lofty, silent chamber, in another part of the city, lay a form more likemarble than a living woman. The loveliness of death seemed frozen upon herface, for her lips were rigid, and her eyelids closed. Her long white handswere crossed over her breast, and no breathing disturbed their repose. Besidethe dead, men speak in whispers, as if the deepest rest of all could be brokenby the sound of a living voice. Just so, though the soul was evidently beyondthe reach of all intimations from the senses, the two ladies, who sat besideher, spoke in the gentlest tones of subdued sorrow. “She has lain so foran hour.”

“This cannot last long, I fear.”

“How much thinner she has grown within the last few weeks! If she wouldonly speak, and explain what she suffers, it would be better for her. I thinkshe has visions in her trances, but nothing can induce her to refer to themwhen she is awake.”

“Does she ever speak in these trances?”

“I have never heard her; but they say she walks sometimes, and once putthe whole household in a terrible fright by disappearing for a whole hour, andreturning drenched with rain, and almost dead with exhaustion and fright. Buteven then she would give no account of what had happened.”

A scarce audible murmur from the yet motionless lips of the lady here startledher attendants. After several ineffectual attempts at articulation, the word“Cosmo!” burst from her. Then she lay still as before; butonly for a moment. With a wild cry, she sprang from the couch erect on thefloor, flung her arms above her head, with clasped and straining hands, and,her wide eyes flashing with light, called aloud, with a voice exultant as thatof a spirit bursting from a sepulchre, “I am free! I am free! I thankthee!” Then she flung herself on the couch, and sobbed; then rose, andpaced wildly up and down the room, with gestures of mingled delight andanxiety. Then turning to her motionless attendants—“Quick, Lisa, mycloak and hood!” Then lower—“I must go to him. Make haste,Lisa! You may come with me, if you will.”

In another moment they were in the street, hurrying along towards one of thebridges over the Moldau. The moon was near the zenith, and the streets werealmost empty. The Princess soon outstripped her attendant, and was half-wayover the bridge, before the other reached it.

“Are you free, lady? The mirror is broken: are you free?”

The words were spoken close beside her, as she hurried on. She turned; andthere, leaning on the parapet in a recess of the bridge, stood Cosmo, in asplendid dress, but with a white and quivering face.

“Cosmo!—I am free—and thy servant for ever. I was coming toyou now.”

“And I to you, for Death made me bold; but I could get no further. Have Iatoned at all? Do I love you a little—truly?”

“Ah, I know now that you love me, my Cosmo; but what do you say aboutdeath?”

He did not reply. His hand was pressed against his side. She looked moreclosely: the blood was welling from between the fingers. She flung her armsaround him with a faint bitter wail.

When Lisa came up, she found her mistress kneeling above a wan dead face, whichsmiled on in the spectral moonbeams.

And now I will say no more about these wondrous volumes; though I could tellmany a tale out of them, and could, perhaps, vaguely represent some entrancingthoughts of a deeper kind which I found within them. From many a sultry noontill twilight, did I sit in that grand hall, buried and risen again in theseold books. And I trust I have carried away in my soul some of the exhalationsof their undying leaves. In after hours of deserved or needful sorrow, portionsof what I read there have often come to me again, with an unexpectedcomforting; which was not fruitless, even though the comfort might seem initself groundless and vain.

CHAPTER XIV

“Your gallery
Have we pass’d through, not without much content
In many singularities; but we saw not
That which my daughter came to look upon,
The state of her mother.”
          Winter’s Tale.

It seemed to me strange, that all this time I had heard no music in the fairypalace. I was convinced there must be music in it, but that my sense was as yettoo gross to receive the influence of those mysterious motions that begetsound. Sometimes I felt sure, from the way the few figures of which I got suchtransitory glimpses passed me, or glided into vacancy before me, that they weremoving to the law of music; and, in fact, several times I fancied for a momentthat I heard a few wondrous tones coming I knew not whence. But they did notlast long enough to convince me that I had heard them with the bodily sense.Such as they were, however, they took strange liberties with me, causing me toburst suddenly into tears, of which there was no presence to make me ashamed,or casting me into a kind of trance of speechless delight, which, passing assuddenly, left me faint and longing for more.

Now, on an evening, before I had been a week in the palace, I was wanderingthrough one lighted arcade and corridor after another. At length I arrived,through a door that closed behind me, in another vast hall of the palace. Itwas filled with a subdued crimson light; by which I saw that slender pillars ofblack, built close to walls of white marble, rose to a great height, and then,dividing into innumerable divergent arches, supported a roof, like the walls,of white marble, upon which the arches intersected intricately, forming afretting of black upon the white, like the network of a skeleton-leaf. Thefloor was black.

Between several pairs of the pillars upon every side, the place of the wallbehind was occupied by a crimson curtain of thick silk, hanging in heavy andrich folds. Behind each of these curtains burned a powerful light, and thesewere the sources of the glow that filled the hall. A peculiar delicious odourpervaded the place. As soon as I entered, the old inspiration seemed to returnto me, for I felt a strong impulse to sing; or rather, it seemed as if some oneelse was singing a song in my soul, which wanted to come forth at my lips,imbodied in my breath. But I kept silence; and feeling somewhat overcome by thered light and the perfume, as well as by the emotion within me, and seeing atone end of the hall a great crimson chair, more like a throne than a chair,beside a table of white marble, I went to it, and, throwing myself in it, gavemyself up to a succession of images of bewildering beauty, which passed beforemy inward eye, in a long and occasionally crowded train. Here I sat for hours,I suppose; till, returning somewhat to myself, I saw that the red light hadpaled away, and felt a cool gentle breath gliding over my forehead. I rose andleft the hall with unsteady steps, finding my way with some difficulty to myown chamber, and faintly remembering, as I went, that only in the marble cave,before I found the sleeping statue, had I ever had a similar experience.

After this, I repaired every morning to the same hall; where I sometimes sat inthe chair and dreamed deliciously, and sometimes walked up and down over theblack floor. Sometimes I acted within myself a whole drama, during one of theseperambulations; sometimes walked deliberately through the whole epic of a tale;sometimes ventured to sing a song, though with a shrinking fear of I knew notwhat. I was astonished at the beauty of my own voice as it rang through theplace, or rather crept undulating, like a serpent of sound, along the walls androof of this superb music-hall. Entrancing verses arose within me as of theirown accord, chanting themselves to their own melodies, and requiring noaddition of music to satisfy the inward sense. But, ever in the pauses ofthese, when the singing mood was upon me, I seemed to hear something like thedistant sound of multitudes of dancers, and felt as if it was the unheardmusic, moving their rhythmic motion, that within me blossomed in verse andsong. I felt, too, that could I but see the dance, I should, from the harmonyof complicated movements, not of the dancers in relation to each other merely,but of each dancer individually in the manifested plastic power that moved theconsenting harmonious form, understand the whole of the music on the billows ofwhich they floated and swung.

At length, one night, suddenly, when this feeling of dancing came upon me, Ibethought me of lifting one of the crimson curtains, and looking if, perchance,behind it there might not be hid some other mystery, which might at leastremove a step further the bewilderment of the present one. Nor was I altogetherdisappointed. I walked to one of the magnificent draperies, lifted a corner,and peeped in. There, burned a great, crimson, globe-shaped light, high in thecubical centre of another hall, which might be larger or less than that inwhich I stood, for its dimensions were not easily perceived, seeing that floorand roof and walls were entirely of black marble.

The roof was supported by the same arrangement of pillars radiating in arches,as that of the first hall; only, here, the pillars and arches were of dark red.But what absorbed my delighted gaze, was an innumerable assembly of whitemarble statues, of every form, and in multitudinous posture, filling the hallthroughout. These stood, in the ruddy glow of the great lamp, upon pedestals ofjet black. Around the lamp shone in golden letters, plainly legible from whereI stood, the two words—

TOUCH NOT!

There was in all this, however, no solution to the sound of dancing; and now Iwas aware that the influence on my mind had ceased. I did not go in thatevening, for I was weary and faint, but I hoarded up the expectation ofentering, as of a great coming joy.

Next night I walked, as on the preceding, through the hall. My mind was filledwith pictures and songs, and therewith so much absorbed, that I did not forsome time think of looking within the curtain I had last night lifted. When thethought of doing so occurred to me first, I happened to be within a few yardsof it. I became conscious, at the same moment, that the sound of dancing hadbeen for some time in my ears. I approached the curtain quickly, and, liftingit, entered the black hall. Everything was still as death. I should haveconcluded that the sound must have proceeded from some other more distantquarter, which conclusion its faintness would, in ordinary circumstances, havenecessitated from the first; but there was a something about the statues thatcaused me still to remain in doubt. As I said, each stood perfectly still uponits black pedestal: but there was about every one a certain air, not of motion,but as if it had just ceased from movement; as if the rest were not altogetherof the marbly stillness of thousands of years. It was as if the peculiaratmosphere of each had yet a kind of invisible tremulousness; as if itsagitated wavelets had not yet subsided into a perfect calm. I had the suspicionthat they had anticipated my appearance, and had sprung, each, from the livingjoy of the dance, to the death-silence and blackness of its isolated pedestal,just before I entered. I walked across the central hall to the curtain oppositethe one I had lifted, and, entering there, found all the appearances similar;only that the statues were different, and differently grouped. Neither did theyproduce on my mind that impression—of motion just expired, which I hadexperienced from the others. I found that behind every one of the crimsoncurtains was a similar hall, similarly lighted, and similarly occupied.

The next night, I did not allow my thoughts to be absorbed as before withinward images, but crept stealthily along to the furthest curtain in the hall,from behind which, likewise, I had formerly seemed to hear the sound ofdancing. I drew aside its edge as suddenly as I could, and, looking in, sawthat the utmost stillness pervaded the vast place. I walked in, and passedthrough it to the other end.

There I found that it communicated with a circular corridor, divided from itonly by two rows of red columns. This corridor, which was black, with redniches holding statues, ran entirely about the statue-halls, forming acommunication between the further ends of them all; further, that is, asregards the central hall of white whence they all diverged like radii, findingtheir circumference in the corridor.

Round this corridor I now went, entering all the halls, of which there weretwelve, and finding them all similarly constructed, but filled with quitevarious statues, of what seemed both ancient and modern sculpture. After I hadsimply walked through them, I found myself sufficiently tired to long for rest,and went to my own room.

In the night I dreamed that, walking close by one of the curtains, I wassuddenly seized with the desire to enter, and darted in. This time I was tooquick for them. All the statues were in motion, statues no longer, but men andwomen—all shapes of beauty that ever sprang from the brain of thesculptor, mingled in the convolutions of a complicated dance. Passing throughthem to the further end, I almost started from my sleep on beholding, nottaking part in the dance with the others, nor seemingly endued with life likethem, but standing in marble coldness and rigidity upon a black pedestal in theextreme left corner—my lady of the cave; the marble beauty who sprangfrom her tomb or her cradle at the call of my songs. While I gazed inspeechless astonishment and admiration, a dark shadow, descending from abovelike the curtain of a stage, gradually hid her entirely from my view. I feltwith a shudder that this shadow was perchance my missing demon, whom I had notseen for days. I awoke with a stifled cry.

Of course, the next evening I began my journey through the halls (for I knewnot to which my dream had carried me), in the hope of proving the dream to be atrue one, by discovering my marble beauty upon her black pedestal. At length,on reaching the tenth hall, I thought I recognised some of the forms I had seendancing in my dream; and to my bewilderment, when I arrived at the extremecorner on the left, there stood, the only one I had yet seen, a vacantpedestal. It was exactly in the position occupied, in my dream, by the pedestalon which the white lady stood. Hope beat violently in my heart.

“Now,” said I to myself, “if yet another part of the dreamwould but come true, and I should succeed in surprising these forms in theirnightly dance; it might be the rest would follow, and I should see on thepedestal my marble queen. Then surely if my songs sufficed to give her lifebefore, when she lay in the bonds of alabaster, much more would they besufficient then to give her volition and motion, when she alone of assembledcrowds of marble forms, would be standing rigid and cold.”

But the difficulty was, to surprise the dancers. I had found that apremeditated attempt at surprise, though executed with the utmost care andrapidity, was of no avail. And, in my dream, it was effected by a suddenthought suddenly executed. I saw, therefore, that there was no plan ofoperation offering any probability of success, but this: to allow my mind to beoccupied with other thoughts, as I wandered around the great centre-hall; andso wait till the impulse to enter one of the others should happen to arise inme just at the moment when I was close to one of the crimson curtains. For Ihoped that if I entered any one of the twelve halls at the right moment, thatwould as it were give me the right of entrance to all the others, seeing theyall had communication behind. I would not diminish the hope of the rightchance, by supposing it necessary that a desire to enter should awake withinme, precisely when I was close to the curtains of the tenth hall.

At first the impulses to see recurred so continually, in spite of the crowdedimagery that kept passing through my mind, that they formed too nearly acontinuous chain, for the hope that any one of them would succeed as asurprise. But as I persisted in banishing them, they recurred less and lessoften; and after two or three, at considerable intervals, had come when thespot where I happened to be was unsuitable, the hope strengthened, that soonone might arise just at the right moment; namely, when, in walking round thehall, I should be close to one of the curtains.

At length the right moment and the impulse coincided. I darted into the ninthhall. It was full of the most exquisite moving forms. The whole space waveredand swam with the involutions of an intricate dance. It seemed to breaksuddenly as I entered, and all made one or two bounds towards their pedestals;but, apparently on finding that they were thoroughly overtaken, they returnedto their employment (for it seemed with them earnest enough to be called such)without further heeding me. Somewhat impeded by the floating crowd, I made whathaste I could towards the bottom of the hall; whence, entering the corridor, Iturned towards the tenth. I soon arrived at the corner I wanted to reach, forthe corridor was comparatively empty; but, although the dancers here, after alittle confusion, altogether disregarded my presence, I was dismayed atbeholding, even yet, a vacant pedestal. But I had a conviction that she wasnear me. And as I looked at the pedestal, I thought I saw upon it, vaguelyrevealed as if through overlapping folds of drapery, the indistinct outlines ofwhite feet. Yet there was no sign of drapery or concealing shadow whatever. ButI remembered the descending shadow in my dream. And I hoped still in the powerof my songs; thinking that what could dispel alabaster, might likewise becapable of dispelling what concealed my beauty now, even if it were the demonwhose darkness had overshadowed all my life.

CHAPTER XV

“Alexander. ‘When will you finish Campaspe?’
Apelles. ‘Never finish: for always in absolute beauty there issomewhat above art.’”
          LYLY’S Campaspe.

And now, what song should I sing to unveil my Isis, if indeed she was presentunseen? I hurried away to the white hall of Phantasy, heedless of theinnumerable forms of beauty that crowded my way: these might cross my eyes, butthe unseen filled my brain. I wandered long, up and down the silent space: nosongs came. My soul was not still enough for songs. Only in the silence anddarkness of the soul’s night, do those stars of the inward firmament sinkto its lower surface from the singing realms beyond, and shine upon theconscious spirit. Here all effort was unavailing. If they came not, they couldnot be found.

Next night, it was just the same. I walked through the red glimmer of thesilent hall; but lonely as there I walked, as lonely trod my soul up and downthe halls of the brain. At last I entered one of the statue-halls. The dancehad just commenced, and I was delighted to find that I was free of theirassembly. I walked on till I came to the sacred corner. There I found thepedestal just as I had left it, with the faint glimmer as of white feet stillresting on the dead black. As soon as I saw it, I seemed to feel a presencewhich longed to become visible; and, as it were, called to me to gift it withself-manifestation, that it might shine on me. The power of song came to me.But the moment my voice, though I sang low and soft, stirred the air of thehall, the dancers started; the quick interweaving crowd shook, lost its form,divided; each figure sprang to its pedestal, and stood, a self-evolving life nomore, but a rigid, life-like, marble shape, with the whole form composed intothe expression of a single state or act. Silence rolled like a spiritualthunder through the grand space. My song had ceased, scared at its owninfluences. But I saw in the hand of one of the statues close by me, a harpwhose chords yet quivered. I remembered that as she bounded past me, her harphad brushed against my arm; so the spell of the marble had not infolded it. Isprang to her, and with a gesture of entreaty, laid my hand on the harp. Themarble hand, probably from its contact with the uncharmed harp, had strengthenough to relax its hold, and yield the harp to me. No other motion indicatedlife. Instinctively I struck the chords and sang. And not to break upon therecord of my song, I mention here, that as I sang the first four lines, theloveliest feet became clear upon the black pedestal; and ever as I sang, it wasas if a veil were being lifted up from before the form, but an invisible veil,so that the statue appeared to grow before me, not so much by evolution, as byinfinitesimal degrees of added height. And, while I sang, I did not feel that Istood by a statue, as indeed it appeared to be, but that a real woman-soul wasrevealing itself by successive stages of imbodiment, and consequentmanifestatlon and expression.

Feet of beauty, firmly planting
    Arches white on rosy heel!
Whence the life-spring, throbbing, panting,
    Pulses upward to reveal!
Fairest things know least despising;
    Foot and earth meet tenderly:
‘Tis the woman, resting, rising
    Upward to sublimity,

Rise the limbs, sedately sloping,
    Strong and gentle, full and free;
Soft and slow, like certain hoping,
    Drawing nigh the broad firm knee.
Up to speech! As up to roses
    Pants the life from leaf to flower,
So each blending change discloses,
    Nearer still, expression’s power.

Lo! fair sweeps, white surges, twining
    Up and outward fearlessly!
Temple columns, close combining,
    Lift a holy mystery.
Heart of mine! what strange surprises
    Mount aloft on such a stair!
Some great vision upward rises,
    Curving, bending, floating fair.

Bands and sweeps, and hill and hollow
    Lead my fascinated eye;
Some apocalypse will follow,
    Some new world of deity.
Zoned unseen, and outward swelling,
    With new thoughts and wonders rife,
Queenly majesty foretelling,
    See the expanding house of life!

Sudden heaving, unforbidden
    Sighs eternal, still the same—
Mounts of snow have summits hidden
    In the mists of uttered flame.
But the spirit, dawning nearly
    Finds no speech for earnest pain;
Finds a soundless sighing merely—
    Builds its stairs, and mounts again.

Heart, the queen, with secret hoping,
    Sendeth out her waiting pair;
Hands, blind hands, half blindly groping,
    Half inclasping visions rare;
And the great arms, heartways bending;
    Might of Beauty, drawing home
There returning, and re-blending,
    Where from roots of love they roam.

Build thy slopes of radiance beamy
    Spirit, fair with womanhood!
Tower thy precipice, white-gleamy,
    Climb unto the hour of good.
Dumb space will be rent asunder,
    Now the shining column stands
Ready to be crowned with wonder
    By the builder’s joyous hands.

All the lines abroad are spreading,
    Like a fountain’s falling race.
Lo, the chin, first feature, treading,
    Airy foot to rest the face!
Speech is nigh; oh, see the blushing,
    Sweet approach of lip and breath!
Round the mouth dim silence, hushing,
    Waits to die ecstatic death.

Span across in treble curving,
    Bow of promise, upper lip!
Set them free, with gracious swerving;
    Let the wing-words float and dip.
Dumb art thou?O Love immortal,
    More than words thy speech must be;
Childless yet the tender portal
    Of the home of melody.

Now the nostrils open fearless,
    Proud in calm unconsciousness,
Sure it must be something peerless
    That the great Pan would express!
Deepens, crowds some meaning tender,
    In the pure, dear lady-face.
Lo, a blinding burst of splendour!—
    ’Tis the free soul’s issuing grace.

Two calm lakes of molten glory
    Circling round unfathomed deeps!
Lightning-flashes, transitory,
    Cross the gulfs where darkness sleeps.
This the gate, at last, of gladness,
    To the outward striving me:
In a rain of light and sadness,
    Out its loves and longings flee!

With a presence I am smitten
    Dumb, with a foreknown surprise;
Presence greater yet than written
    Even in the glorious eyes.
Through the gulfs, with inward gazes,
    I may look till I am lost;
Wandering deep in spirit-mazes,
    In a sea without a coast.

Windows open to the glorious!
    Time and space, oh, far beyond!
Woman, ah! thou art victorious,
    And I perish, overfond.
Springs aloft the yet Unspoken
    In the forehead’s endless grace,
Full of silences unbroken;
    Infinite, unfeatured face.

Domes above, the mount of wonder;
    Height and hollow wrapt in night;
Hiding in its caverns under
    Woman-nations in their might.
Passing forms, the highest Human
    Faints away to the Divine
Features none, of man or woman,
    Can unveil the holiest shine.

Sideways, grooved porches only
    Visible to passing eye,
Stand the silent, doorless, lonely
    Entrance-gates of melody.
But all sounds fly in as boldly,
    Groan and song, and kiss and cry
At their galleries, lifted coldly,
    Darkly, ‘twixt the earth and sky.

Beauty, thou art spent, thou knowest
    So, in faint, half-glad despair,
From the summit thou o’erflowest
    In a fall of torrent hair;
Hiding what thou hast created
    In a half-transparent shroud:
Thus, with glory soft-abated,
    Shines the moon through vapoury cloud.

CHAPTER XVI

“Ev’n the Styx, which ninefold her infoldeth
    Hems not Ceres’ daughter in its flow;
But she grasps the apple—ever holdeth
    Her, sad Orcus, down below.”
          SCHILLER, Das Ideal und das Leben.

Ever as I sang, the veil was uplifted; ever as I sang, the signs of life grew;till, when the eyes dawned upon me, it was with that sunrise of splendour whichmy feeble song attempted to re-imbody.

The wonder is, that I was not altogether overcome, but was able to complete mysong as the unseen veil continued to rise. This ability came solely from thestate of mental elevation in which I found myself. Only because uplifted insong, was I able to endure the blaze of the dawn. But I cannot tell whether shelooked more of statue or more of woman; she seemed removed into that region ofphantasy where all is intensely vivid, but nothing clearly defined. At last, asI sang of her descending hair, the glow of soul faded away, like a dyingsunset. A lamp within had been extinguished, and the house of life shone blankin a winter morn. She was a statue once more—but visible, and that wasmuch gained. Yet the revulsion from hope and fruition was such, that, unable torestrain myself, I sprang to her, and, in defiance of the law of the place,flung my arms around her, as if I would tear her from the grasp of a visibleDeath, and lifted her from the pedestal down to my heart. But no sooner had herfeet ceased to be in contact with the black pedestal, than she shuddered andtrembled all over; then, writhing from my arms, before I could tighten theirhold, she sprang into the corridor, with the reproachful cry, “You shouldnot have touched me!” darted behind one of the exterior pillars of thecircle, and disappeared. I followed almost as fast; but ere I could reach thepillar, the sound of a closing door, the saddest of all sounds sometimes, fellon my ear; and, arriving at the spot where she had vanished, I saw, lighted bya pale yellow lamp which hung above it, a heavy, rough door, altogether unlikeany others I had seen in the palace; for they were all of ebony, or ivory, orcovered with silver-plates, or of some odorous wood, and very ornate; whereasthis seemed of old oak, with heavy nails and iron studs. Notwithstanding theprecipitation of my pursuit, I could not help reading, in silver lettersbeneath the lamp: “No one enters here without the leave of theQueen.” But what was the Queen to me, when I followed my white lady?I dashed the door to the wall and sprang through. Lo! I stood on a waste windyhill. Great stones like tombstones stood all about me. No door, no palace wasto be seen. A white figure gleamed past me, wringing her hands, and crying,“Ah! you should have sung to me; you should have sung to me!” anddisappeared behind one of the stones. I followed. A cold gust of wind met mefrom behind the stone; and when I looked, I saw nothing but a great hole in theearth, into which I could find no way of entering. Had she fallen in? I couldnot tell. I must wait for the daylight. I sat down and wept, for there was nohelp.

CHAPTER XVII

“First, I thought, almost despairing,
    This must crush my spirit now;
Yet I bore it, and am bearing—
    Only do not ask me how.”
          HEINE.

When the daylight came, it brought the possibility of action, but with itlittle of consolation. With the first visible increase of light, I gazed intothe chasm, but could not, for more than an hour, see sufficiently well todiscover its nature. At last I saw it was almost a perpendicular opening, likea roughly excavated well, only very large. I could perceive no bottom; and itwas not till the sun actually rose, that I discovered a sort of naturalstaircase, in many parts little more than suggested, which led round and roundthe gulf, descending spirally into its abyss. I saw at once that this was mypath; and without a moment’s hesitation, glad to quit the sunlight, whichstared at me most heartlessly, I commenced my tortuous descent. It was verydifficult. In some parts I had to cling to the rocks like a bat. In one place,I dropped from the track down upon the next returning spire of the stair; whichbeing broad in this particular portion, and standing out from the wall at rightangles, received me upon my feet safe, though somewhat stupefied by the shock.After descending a great way, I found the stair ended at a narrow opening whichentered the rock horizontally. Into this I crept, and, having entered, had justroom to turn round. I put my head out into the shaft by which I had come down,and surveyed the course of my descent. Looking up, I saw the stars; althoughthe sun must by this time have been high in the heavens. Looking below, I sawthat the sides of the shaft went sheer down, smooth as glass; and far beneathme, I saw the reflection of the same stars I had seen in the heavens when Ilooked up. I turned again, and crept inwards some distance, when the passagewidened, and I was at length able to stand and walk upright. Wider and loftiergrew the way; new paths branched off on every side; great open halls appeared;till at last I found myself wandering on through an underground country, inwhich the sky was of rock, and instead of trees and flowers, there were onlyfantastic rocks and stones. And ever as I went, darker grew my thoughts, tillat last I had no hope whatever of finding the white lady: I no longer calledher to myself mywhite lady. Whenever a choice was necessary, I alwayschose the path which seemed to lead downwards.

At length I began to find that these regions were inhabited. From behind a rocka peal of harsh grating laughter, full of evil humour, rang through my ears,and, looking round, I saw a queer, goblin creature, with a great head andridiculous features, just such as those described, in German histories andtravels, as Kobolds. “What do you want with me?” I said. He pointedat me with a long forefinger, very thick at the root, and sharpened to a point,and answered, “He! he! he! what do youwant here?” Then,changing his tone, he continued, with mock humility—“Honoured sir,vouchsafe to withdraw from thy slaves the lustre of thy august presence, forthy slaves cannot support its brightness.” A second appeared, and struckin: “You are so big, you keep the sun from us. We can’t see foryou, and we’re so cold.” Thereupon arose, on all sides, the mostterrific uproar of laughter, from voices like those of children in volume, butscrannel and harsh as those of decrepit age, though, unfortunately, without itsweakness. The whole pandemonium of fairy devils, of all varieties of fantasticugliness, both in form and feature, and of all sizes from one to four feet,seemed to have suddenly assembled about me. At length, after a great babble oftalk among themselves, in a language unknown to me, and after seemingly endlessgesticulation, consultation, elbow-nudging, and unmitigated peals of laughter,they formed into a circle about one of their number, who scrambled upon astone, and, much to my surprise, and somewhat to my dismay, began to sing, in avoice corresponding in its nature to his talking one, from beginning to end,the song with which I had brought the light into the eyes of the white lady. Hesang the same air too; and, all the time, maintained a face of mock entreatyand worship; accompanying the song with the travestied gestures of one playingon the lute. The whole assembly kept silence, except at the close of everyverse, when they roared, and danced, and shouted with laughter, and flungthemselves on the ground, in real or pretended convulsions of delight. When hehad finished, the singer threw himself from the top of the stone, turning heelsover head several times in his descent; and when he did alight, it was on thetop of his head, on which he hopped about, making the most grotesquegesticulations with his legs in the air. Inexpressible laughter followed, whichbroke up in a shower of tiny stones from innumerable hands. They could notmaterially injure me, although they cut me on the head and face. I attempted torun away, but they all rushed upon me, and, laying hold of every part thatafforded a grasp, held me tight. Crowding about me like bees, they shouted aninsect-swarm of exasperating speeches up into my face, among which the mostfrequently recurring were—“You shan’t have her; youshan’t have her; he! he! he! She’s for a better man; howhe’ll kiss her! how he’ll kiss her!”

The galvanic torrent of this battery of malevolence stung to life within me aspark of nobleness, and I said aloud, “Well, if he is a better man, lethim have her.”

They instantly let go their hold of me, and fell back a step or two, with awhole broadside of grunts and humphs, as of unexpected and disappointedapprobation. I made a step or two forward, and a lane was instantly opened forme through the midst of the grinning little antics, who bowed most politely tome on every side as I passed. After I had gone a few yards, I looked back, andsaw them all standing quite still, looking after me, like a great school ofboys; till suddenly one turned round, and with a loud whoop, rushed into themidst of the others. In an instant, the whole was one writhing and tumblingheap of contortion, reminding me of the live pyramids of intertwined snakes ofwhich travellers make report. As soon as one was worked out of the mass, hebounded off a few paces, and then, with a somersault and a run, threw himselfgyrating into the air, and descended with all his weight on the summit of theheaving and struggling chaos of fantastic figures. I left them still busy atthis fierce and apparently aimless amusement. And as I went, I sang—

If a nobler waits for thee,
    I will weep aside;
It is well that thou should’st be,
    Of the nobler, bride.

For if love builds up the home,
    Where the heart is free,
Homeless yet the heart must roam,
    That has not found thee.

One must suffer: I, for her
    Yield in her my part
Take her, thou art worthier—
    Still I be still, my heart!

Gift ungotten! largess high
    Of a frustrate will!
But to yield it lovingly
    Is a something still.

Then a little song arose of itself in my soul; and I felt for the moment, whileit sank sadly within me, as if I was once more walking up and down the whitehall of Phantasy in the Fairy Palace. But this lasted no longer than the song;as will be seen.

Do not vex thy violet
    Perfume to afford:
Else no odour thou wilt get
    From its little hoard.

In thy lady’s gracious eyes
    Look not thou too long;
Else from them the glory flies,
    And thou dost her wrong.

Come not thou too near the maid,
    Clasp her not too wild;
Else the splendour is allayed,
    And thy heart beguiled.

A crash of laughter, more discordant and deriding than any I had yet heard,invaded my ears. Looking on in the direction of the sound, I saw a littleelderly woman, much taller, however, than the goblins I had just left, seatedupon a stone by the side of the path. She rose, as I drew near, and cameforward to meet me.

She was very plain and commonplace in appearance, without being hideously ugly.Looking up in my face with a stupid sneer, she said: “Isn’t it apity you haven’t a pretty girl to walk all alone with you through thissweet country? How different everything would look? wouldn’t it? Strangethat one can never have what one would like best! How the roses would bloom andall that, even in this infernal hole! wouldn’t they, Anodos? Her eyeswould light up the old cave, wouldn’t they?”

“That depends on who the pretty girl should be,” replied I.

“Not so very much matter that,” she answered; “lookhere.”

I had turned to go away as I gave my reply, but now I stopped and looked ather. As a rough unsightly bud might suddenly blossom into the most lovelyflower; or rather, as a sunbeam bursts through a shapeless cloud, andtransfigures the earth; so burst a face of resplendent beauty, as it werethroughthe unsightly visage of the woman, destroying it with light asit dawned through it. A summer sky rose above me, gray with heat; across ashining slumberous landscape, looked from afar the peaks of snow-cappedmountains; and down from a great rock beside me fell a sheet of water mad withits own delight.

“Stay with me,” she said, lifting up her exquisite face, andlooking full in mine.

I drew back. Again the infernal laugh grated upon my ears; again the rocksclosed in around me, and the ugly woman looked at me with wicked, mocking hazeleyes.

“You shall have your reward,” said she. “You shall see yourwhite lady again.”

“That lies not with you,” I replied, and turned and left her.

She followed me with shriek upon shriek of laughter, as I went on my way.

I may mention here, that although there was always light enough to see my pathand a few yards on every side of me, I never could find out the source of thissad sepulchral illumination.

CHAPTER XVIII

“In the wind’s uproar, the sea’s raging grim,
And the sighs that are born in him.”
          HEINE.

“From dreams of bliss shall men awake
One day, but not to weep:
The dreams remain; they only break
The mirror of the sleep.”
          JEANPAUL, Hesperus.

How I got through this dreary part of my travels, I do not know. I do not thinkI was upheld by the hope that any moment the light might break in upon me; forI scarcely thought about that. I went on with a dull endurance, varied bymoments of uncontrollable sadness; for more and more the conviction grew uponme that I should never see the white lady again. It may seem strange that onewith whom I had held so little communion should have so engrossed my thoughts;but benefits conferred awaken love in some minds, as surely as benefitsreceived in others. Besides being delighted and proud that mysongs hadcalled the beautiful creature to life, the same fact caused me to feel atenderness unspeakable for her, accompanied with a kind of feeling of propertyin her; for so the goblin Selfishness would reward the angel Love. When to allthis is added, an overpowering sense of her beauty, and an unquestioningconviction that this was a true index to inward loveliness, it may beunderstood how it came to pass that my imagination filled my whole soul withthe play of its own multitudinous colours and harmonies around the form whichyet stood, a gracious marble radiance, in the midst of itswhite hall ofphantasy. The time passed by unheeded; for my thoughts were busy. Perhaps thiswas also in part the cause of my needing no food, and never thinking how Ishould find any, during this subterraneous part of my travels. How long theyendured I could not tell, for I had no means of measuring time; and when Ilooked back, there was such a discrepancy between the decisions of myimagination and my judgment, as to the length of time that had passed, that Iwas bewildered, and gave up all attempts to arrive at any conclusion on thepoint.

A gray mist continually gathered behind me. When I looked back towards thepast, this mist was the medium through which my eyes had to strain for a visionof what had gone by; and the form of the white lady had receded into an unknownregion. At length the country of rock began to close again around me, graduallyand slowly narrowing, till I found myself walking in a gallery of rock oncemore, both sides of which I could touch with my outstretched hands. It narrowedyet, until I was forced to move carefully, in order to avoid striking againstthe projecting pieces of rock. The roof sank lower and lower, until I wascompelled, first to stoop, and then to creep on my hands and knees. It recalledterrible dreams of childhood; but I was not much afraid, because I felt surethat this was my path, and my only hope of leaving Fairy Land, of which I wasnow almost weary.

At length, on getting past an abrupt turn in the passage, through which I hadto force myself, I saw, a few yards ahead of me, the long-forgotten daylightshining through a small opening, to which the path, if path it could now becalled, led me. With great difficulty I accomplished these last few yards, andcame forth to the day. I stood on the shore of a wintry sea, with a wintry sunjust a few feet above its horizon-edge. It was bare, and waste, and gray.Hundreds of hopeless waves rushed constantly shorewards, falling exhausted upona beach of great loose stones, that seemed to stretch miles and miles in bothdirections. There was nothing for the eye but mingling shades of gray; nothingfor the ear but the rush of the coming, the roar of the breaking, and the moanof the retreating wave. No rock lifted up a sheltering severity above thedreariness around; even that from which I had myself emerged rose scarcely afoot above the opening by which I had reached the dismal day, more dismal eventhan the tomb I had left. A cold, death-like wind swept across the shore,seeming to issue from a pale mouth of cloud upon the horizon. Sign of life wasnowhere visible. I wandered over the stones, up and down the beach, a humanimbodiment of the nature around me. The wind increased; its keen waves flowedthrough my soul; the foam rushed higher up the stones; a few dead stars beganto gleam in the east; the sound of the waves grew louder and yet moredespairing. A dark curtain of cloud was lifted up, and a pale blue rent shonebetween its foot and the edge of the sea, out from which rushed an icy storm offrozen wind, that tore the waters into spray as it passed, and flung thebillows in raving heaps upon the desolate shore. I could bear it no longer.

“I will not be tortured to death,” I cried; “I will meet ithalf-way. The life within me is yet enough to bear me up to the face of Death,and then I die unconquered.”

Before it had grown so dark, I had observed, though without any particularinterest, that on one part of the shore a low platform of rock seemed to runout far into the midst of the breaking waters.

Towards this I now went, scrambling over smooth stones, to which scarce even aparticle of sea-weed clung; and having found it, I got on it, and followed itsdirection, as near as I could guess, out into the tumbling chaos. I couldhardly keep my feet against the wind and sea. The waves repeatedly all butswept me off my path; but I kept on my way, till I reached the end of the lowpromontory, which, in the fall of the waves, rose a good many feet above thesurface, and, in their rise, was covered with their waters. I stood one momentand gazed into the heaving abyss beneath me; then plunged headlong into themounting wave below. A blessing, like the kiss of a mother, seemed to alight onmy soul; a calm, deeper than that which accompanies a hope deferred, bathed myspirit. I sank far into the waters, and sought not to return. I felt as if oncemore the great arms of the beech-tree were around me, soothing me after themiseries I had passed through, and telling me, like a little sick child, that Ishould be better to-morrow. The waters of themselves lifted me, as with lovingarms, to the surface. I breathed again, but did not unclose my eyes. I wouldnot look on the wintry sea, and the pitiless gray sky. Thus I floated, tillsomething gently touched me. It was a little boat floating beside me. How itcame there I could not tell; but it rose and sank on the waters, and kepttouching me in its fall, as if with a human will to let me know that help wasby me. It was a little gay-coloured boat, seemingly covered with glisteringscales like those of a fish, all of brilliant rainbow hues. I scrambled intoit, and lay down in the bottom, with a sense of exquisite repose.

Then I drew over me a rich, heavy, purple cloth that was beside me; and, lyingstill, knew, by the sound of the waters, that my little bark was fleetingrapidly onwards. Finding, however, none of that stormy motion which the sea hadmanifested when I beheld it from the shore, I opened my eyes; and, lookingfirst up, saw above me the deep violet sky of a warm southern night; and then,lifting my head, saw that I was sailing fast upon a summer sea, in the lastborder of a southern twilight. The aureole of the sun yet shot the extremefaint tips of its longest rays above the horizon-waves, and withdrew them not.It was a perpetual twilight. The stars, great and earnest, likechildren’s eyes, bent down lovingly towards the waters; and the reflectedstars within seemed to float up, as if longing to meet their embraces. But whenI looked down, a new wonder met my view. For, vaguely revealed beneath thewave, I floated above my whole Past. The fields of my childhood flitted by; thehalls of my youthful labours; the streets of great cities where I had dwelt;and the assemblies of men and women wherein I had wearied myself seeking forrest. But so indistinct were the visions, that sometimes I thought I wassailing on a shallow sea, and that strange rocks and forests of sea-plantsbeguiled my eye, sufficiently to be transformed, by the magic of the phantasy,into well-known objects and regions. Yet, at times, a beloved form seemed tolie close beneath me in sleep; and the eyelids would tremble as if about toforsake the conscious eye; and the arms would heave upwards, as if in dreamsthey sought for a satisfying presence. But these motions might come only fromthe heaving of the waters between those forms and me. Soon I fell asleep,overcome with fatigue and delight. In dreams of unspeakable joy—ofrestored friendships; of revived embraces; of love which said it had neverdied; of faces that had vanished long ago, yet said with smiling lips that theyknew nothing of the grave; of pardons implored, and granted with such burstingfloods of love, that I was almost glad I had sinned—thus I passed throughthis wondrous twilight. I awoke with the feeling that I had been kissed andloved to my heart’s content; and found that my boat was floatingmotionless by the grassy shore of a little island.

CHAPTER XIX

“In still rest, in changeless simplicity, I bear,
uninterrupted, the consciousness of the whole of Humanity within me.”
          SCHLEIERMACHER, Monologen.

“... such a sweetness, such a grace,
    In all thy speech appear,
That what to th’eye a beauteous face,
    That thy tongue is to the ear.”
          COWLEY.

The water was deep to the very edge; and I sprang from the little boat upon asoft grassy turf. The island seemed rich with a profusion of all grasses andlow flowers. All delicate lowly things were most plentiful; but no trees roseskywards, not even a bush overtopped the tall grasses, except in one place nearthe cottage I am about to describe, where a few plants of the gum-cistus, whichdrops every night all the blossoms that the day brings forth, formed a kind ofnatural arbour. The whole island lay open to the sky and sea. It rose nowheremore than a few feet above the level of the waters, which flowed deep allaround its border. Here there seemed to be neither tide nor storm. A sense ofpersistent calm and fulness arose in the mind at the sight of the slow,pulse-like rise and fall of the deep, clear, unrippled waters against the bankof the island, for shore it could hardly be called, being so much more like theedge of a full, solemn river. As I walked over the grass towards the cottage,which stood at a little distance from the bank, all the flowers of childhoodlooked at me with perfect child-eyes out of the grass. My heart, softened bythe dreams through which it had passed, overflowed in a sad, tender lovetowards them. They looked to me like children impregnably fortified in ahelpless confidence. The sun stood half-way down the western sky, shining verysoft and golden; and there grew a second world of shadows amidst the world ofgrasses and wild flowers.

The cottage was square, with low walls, and a high pyramidal roof thatched withlong reeds, of which the withered blossoms hung over all the eaves. It isnoticeable that most of the buildings I saw in Fairy Land were cottages. Therewas no path to a door, nor, indeed, was there any track worn by footsteps inthe island.

The cottage rose right out of the smooth turf. It had no windows that I couldsee; but there was a door in the centre of the side facing me, up to which Iwent. I knocked, and the sweetest voice I had ever heard said, “Comein.” I entered. A bright fire was burning on a hearth in the centre ofthe earthern floor, and the smoke found its way out at an opening in the centreof the pyramidal roof. Over the fire hung a little pot, and over the pot bent awoman-face, the most wonderful, I thought, that I had ever beheld. For it wasolder than any countenance I had ever looked upon. There was not a spot inwhich a wrinkle could lie, where a wrinkle lay not. And the skin was ancientand brown, like old parchment. The woman’s form was tall and spare: andwhen she stood up to welcome me, I saw that she was straight as an arrow. Couldthat voice of sweetness have issued from those lips of age? Mild as they were,could they be the portals whence flowed such melody? But the moment I saw hereyes, I no longer wondered at her voice: they were absolutely young—thoseof a woman of five-and-twenty, large, and of a clear gray. Wrinkles had besetthem all about; the eyelids themselves were old, and heavy, and worn; but theeyes were very incarnations of soft light. She held out her hand to me, and thevoice of sweetness again greeted me, with the single word,“Welcome.” She set an old wooden chair for me, near the fire, andwent on with her cooking. A wondrous sense of refuge and repose came upon me. Ifelt like a boy who has got home from school, miles across the hills, through aheavy storm of wind and snow. Almost, as I gazed on her, I sprang from my seatto kiss those old lips. And when, having finished her cooking, she brought someof the dish she had prepared, and set it on a little table by me, covered witha snow-white cloth, I could not help laying my head on her bosom, and burstinginto happy tears. She put her arms round me, saying, “Poor child; poorchild!”

As I continued to weep, she gently disengaged herself, and, taking a spoon, putsome of the food (I did not know what it was) to my lips, entreating me mostendearingly to swallow it. To please her, I made an effort, and succeeded. Shewent on feeding me like a baby, with one arm round me, till I looked up in herface and smiled: then she gave me the spoon and told me to eat, for it would dome good. I obeyed her, and found myself wonderfully refreshed. Then she drewnear the fire an old-fashioned couch that was in the cottage, and making me liedown upon it, sat at my feet, and began to sing. Amazing store of old balladsrippled from her lips, over the pebbles of ancient tunes; and the voice thatsang was sweet as the voice of a tuneful maiden that singeth ever from veryfulness of song. The songs were almost all sad, but with a sound of comfort.One I can faintly recall. It was something like this:

Sir Aglovaile through the churchyard rode;
        Sing, All alone I lie:
Little recked he where’er he yode,
        All alone, up in the sky.

Swerved his courser, and plunged with fear
        All alone I lie:
His cry might have wakened the dead men near,
        All alone, up in the sky.

The very dead that lay at his feet,
Lapt in the mouldy winding-sheet.

But he curbed him and spurred him, until he stood
Still in his place, like a horse of wood,

With nostrils uplift, and eyes wide and wan;
But the sweat in streams from his fetlocks ran.

A ghost grew out of the shadowy air,
And sat in the midst of her moony hair.

In her gleamy hair she sat and wept;
In the dreamful moon they lay and slept;

The shadows above, and the bodies below,
Lay and slept in the moonbeams slow.

And she sang, like the moan of an autumn wind
Over the stubble left behind:

Alas, how easily things go wrong!
A sigh too much, or a kiss too long,
And there follows a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is never the same again.

Alas, how hardly things go right!
‘Tis hard to watch on a summer night,
For the sigh will come and the kiss will stay,
And the summer night is a winter day.

“Oh, lovely ghosts my heart is woes
To see thee weeping and wailing so.

Oh, lovely ghost,” said the fearless knight,
“Can the sword of a warrior set it right?

Or prayer of bedesman, praying mild,
As a cup of water a feverish child,

Sooth thee at last, in dreamless mood
To sleep the sleep a dead lady should?

Thine eyes they fill me with longing sore,
As if I had known thee for evermore.

Oh, lovely ghost, I could leave the day
To sit with thee in the moon away

If thou wouldst trust me, and lay thy head
To rest on a bosom that is not dead.”
The lady sprang up with a strange ghost-cry,
And she flung her white ghost-arms on high:

And she laughed a laugh that was not gay,
And it lengthened out till it died away;

And the dead beneath turned and moaned,
And the yew-trees above they shuddered and groaned.

“Will he love me twice with a love that is vain?
Will he kill the poor ghost yet again?

I thought thou wert good; but I said, and wept:
‘Can I have dreamed who have not slept?’

And I knew, alas! or ever I would,
Whether I dreamed, or thou wert good.

When my baby died, my brain grew wild.
I awoke, and found I was with my child.”

“If thou art the ghost of my Adelaide,
How is it? Thou wert but a village maid,

And thou seemest an angel lady white,
Though thin, and wan, and past delight.”

The lady smiled a flickering smile,
And she pressed her temples hard the while.

“Thou seest that Death for a woman can
Do more than knighthood for a man.”

“But show me the child thou callest mine,
Is she out to-night in the ghost’s sunshine?”

“In St. Peter’s Church she is playing on,
At hide-and-seek, with Apostle John.

When the moonbeams right through the window go,
Where the twelve are standing in glorious show,

She says the rest of them do not stir,
But one comes down to play with her.

Then I can go where I list, and weep,
For good St. John my child will keep.”

“Thy beauty filleth the very air,
Never saw I a woman so fair.”

“Come, if thou darest, and sit by my side;
But do not touch me, or woe will betide.

Alas, I am weak: I might well know
This gladness betokens some further woe.

Yet come. It will come. I will bear it. I can.
For thou lovest me yet—though but as a man.”

The knight dismounted in earnest speed;
Away through the tombstones thundered the steed,

And fell by the outer wall, and died.
But the knight he kneeled by the lady’s side;

Kneeled beside her in wondrous bliss,
Rapt in an everlasting kiss:

Though never his lips come the lady nigh,
And his eyes alone on her beauty lie.

All the night long, till the cock crew loud,
He kneeled by the lady, lapt in her shroud.

And what they said, I may not say:
Dead night was sweeter than living day.

How she made him so blissful glad
Who made her and found her so ghostly sad,

I may not tell; but it needs no touch
To make them blessed who love so much.

“Come every night, my ghost, to me;
And one night I will come to thee.

‘Tis good to have a ghostly wife:
She will not tremble at clang of strife;

She will only hearken, amid the din,
Behind the door, if he cometh in.”

And this is how Sir Aglovaile
Often walked in the moonlight pale.

And oft when the crescent but thinned the gloom,
Full orbed moonlight filled his room;

And through beneath his chamber door,
Fell a ghostly gleam on the outer floor;

And they that passed, in fear averred
That murmured words they often heard.

‘Twas then that the eastern crescent shone
Through the chancel window, and good St. John

Played with the ghost-child all the night,
And the mother was free till the morning light,

And sped through the dawning night, to stay
With Aglovaile till the break of day.

And their love was a rapture, lone and high,
And dumb as the moon in the topmost sky.

One night Sir Aglovaile, weary, slept
And dreamed a dream wherein he wept.

A warrior he was, not often wept he,
But this night he wept full bitterly.

He woke—beside him the ghost-girl shone
Out of the dark: ‘twas the eve of St. John.

He had dreamed a dream of a still, dark wood,
Where the maiden of old beside him stood;

But a mist came down, and caught her away,
And he sought her in vain through the pathless day,

Till he wept with the grief that can do no more,
And thought he had dreamt the dream before.

From bursting heart the weeping flowed on;
And lo! beside him the ghost-girl shone;

Shone like the light on a harbour’s breast,
Over the sea of his dream’s unrest;

Shone like the wondrous, nameless boon,
That the heart seeks ever, night or noon:

Warnings forgotten, when needed most,
He clasped to his bosom the radiant ghost.

She wailed aloud, and faded, and sank.
With upturn’d white face, cold and blank,

In his arms lay the corpse of the maiden pale,
And she came no more to Sir Aglovaile.

Only a voice, when winds were wild,
Sobbed and wailed like a chidden child.

Alas, how easily things go wrong!
A sigh too much, or a kiss too long,
And there follows a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is never the same again.

This was one of the simplest of her songs, which, perhaps, is the cause of mybeing able to remember it better than most of the others. While she sung, I wasin Elysium, with the sense of a rich soul upholding, embracing, and overhangingmine, full of all plenty and bounty. I felt as if she could give me everythingI wanted; as if I should never wish to leave her, but would be content to besung to and fed by her, day after day, as years rolled by. At last I fellasleep while she sang.

When I awoke, I knew not whether it was night or day. The fire had sunk to afew red embers, which just gave light enough to show me the woman standing afew feet from me, with her back towards me, facing the door by which I hadentered. She was weeping, but very gently and plentifully. The tears seemed tocome freely from her heart. Thus she stood for a few minutes; then, slowlyturning at right angles to her former position, she faced another of the foursides of the cottage. I now observed, for the first time, that here was a doorlikewise; and that, indeed, there was one in the centre of every side of thecottage.

When she looked towards the second door, her tears ceased to flow, but sighstook their place. She often closed her eyes as she stood; and every time sheclosed her eyes, a gentle sigh seemed to be born in her heart, and to escape ather lips. But when her eyes were open, her sighs were deep and very sad, andshook her whole frame. Then she turned towards the third door, and a cry as offear or suppressed pain broke from her; but she seemed to hearten herselfagainst the dismay, and to front it steadily; for, although I often heard aslight cry, and sometimes a moan, yet she never moved or bent her head, and Ifelt sure that her eyes never closed. Then she turned to the fourth door, and Isaw her shudder, and then stand still as a statue; till at last she turnedtowards me and approached the fire. I saw that her face was white as death. Butshe gave one look upwards, and smiled the sweetest, most child-innocent smile;then heaped fresh wood on the fire, and, sitting down by the blaze, drew herwheel near her, and began to spin. While she spun, she murmured a low strangesong, to which the hum of the wheel made a kind of infinite symphony. At lengthshe paused in her spinning and singing, and glanced towards me, like a motherwho looks whether or not her child gives signs of waking. She smiled when shesaw that my eyes were open. I asked her whether it was day yet. She answered,“It is always day here, so long as I keep my fire burning.”

I felt wonderfully refreshed; and a great desire to see more of the islandawoke within me. I rose, and saying that I wished to look about me, wenttowards the door by which I had entered.

“Stay a moment,” said my hostess, with some trepidation in hervoice. “Listen to me. You will not see what you expect when you go out ofthat door. Only remember this: whenever you wish to come back to me, enterwherever you see this mark.”

She held up her left hand between me and the fire. Upon the palm, whichappeared almost transparent, I saw, in dark red, a mark like this —>which I took care to fix in my mind.

She then kissed me, and bade me good-bye with a solemnity that awed me; andbewildered me too, seeing I was only going out for a little ramble in anisland, which I did not believe larger than could easily be compassed in a fewhours’ walk at most. As I went she resumed her spinning.

I opened the door, and stepped out. The moment my foot touched the smoothsward, I seemed to issue from the door of an old barn on my father’sestate, where, in the hot afternoons, I used to go and lie amongst the straw,and read. It seemed to me now that I had been asleep there. At a littledistance in the field, I saw two of my brothers at play. The moment they caughtsight of me, they called out to me to come and join them, which I did; and weplayed together as we had done years ago, till the red sun went down in thewest, and the gray fog began to rise from the river. Then we went home togetherwith a strange happiness. As we went, we heard the continually renewed larum ofa landrail in the long grass. One of my brothers and I separated to a littledistance, and each commenced running towards the part whence the sound appearedto come, in the hope of approaching the spot where the bird was, and so gettingat least a sight of it, if we should not be able to capture the littlecreature. My father’s voice recalled us from trampling down the rich longgrass, soon to be cut down and laid aside for the winter. I had quite forgottenall about Fairy Land, and the wonderful old woman, and the curious red mark.

My favourite brother and I shared the same bed. Some childish dispute arosebetween us; and our last words, ere we fell asleep, were not of kindness,notwithstanding the pleasures of the day. When I woke in the morning, I missedhim. He had risen early, and had gone to bathe in the river. In another hour,he was brought home drowned. Alas! alas! if we had only gone to sleep as usual,the one with his arm about the other! Amidst the horror of the moment, astrange conviction flashed across my mind, that I had gone through the verysame once before.

I rushed out of the house, I knew not why, sobbing and crying bitterly. I ranthrough the fields in aimless distress, till, passing the old barn, I caughtsight of a red mark on the door. The merest trifles sometimes rivet theattention in the deepest misery; the intellect has so little to do with grief.I went up to look at this mark, which I did not remember ever to have seenbefore. As I looked at it, I thought I would go in and lie down amongst thestraw, for I was very weary with running about and weeping. I opened the door;and there in the cottage sat the old woman as I had left her, at herspinning-wheel.

“I did not expect you quite so soon,” she said, as I shut the doorbehind me. I went up to the couch, and threw myself on it with that fatiguewherewith one awakes from a feverish dream of hopeless grief.

The old woman sang:

The great sun, benighted,
    May faint from the sky;
But love, once uplighted,
    Will never more die.

Form, with its brightness,
    From eyes will depart:
It walketh, in whiteness,
    The halls of the heart.

Ere she had ceased singing, my courage had returned. I started from the couch,and, without taking leave of the old woman, opened the door of Sighs, andsprang into what should appear.

I stood in a lordly hall, where, by a blazing fire on the hearth, sat a lady,waiting, I knew, for some one long desired. A mirror was near me, but I sawthat my form had no place within its depths, so I feared not that I should beseen. The lady wonderfully resembled my marble lady, but was altogether of thedaughters of men, and I could not tell whether or not it was she.

It was not for me she waited. The tramp of a great horse rang through the courtwithout. It ceased, and the clang of armour told that his rider alighted, andthe sound of his ringing heels approached the hall. The door opened; but thelady waited, for she would meet her lord alone. He strode in: she flew like ahome-bound dove into his arms, and nestled on the hard steel. It was the knightof the soiled armour. But now the armour shone like polished glass; and strangeto tell, though the mirror reflected not my form, I saw a dim shadow of myselfin the shining steel.

“O my beloved, thou art come, and I am blessed.”

Her soft fingers speedily overcame the hard clasp of his helmet; one by one sheundid the buckles of his armour; and she toiled under the weight of the mail,as she wouldcarry it aside. Then she unclasped his greaves, andunbuckled his spurs; and once more she sprang into his arms, and laid her headwhere she could now feel the beating of his heart. Then she disengaged herselffrom his embrace, and, moving back a step or two, gazed at him. He stood therea mighty form, crowned with a noble head, where all sadness had disappeared, orhad been absorbed in solemn purpose. Yet I suppose that he looked morethoughtful than the lady had expected to see him, for she did not renew hercaresses, although his face glowed with love, and the few words he spoke wereas mighty deeds for strength; but she led him towards the hearth, and seatedhim in an ancient chair, and set wine before him, and sat at his feet.

“I am sad,” he said, “when I think of the youth whom I mettwice in the forests of Fairy Land; and who, you say, twice, with his songs,roused you from the death-sleep of an evil enchantment. There was somethingnoble in him, but it was a nobleness of thought, and not of deed. He may yetperish of vile fear.”

“Ah!” returned the lady, “you saved him once, and for that Ithank you; for may I not say that I somewhat loved him? But tell me how youfared, when you struck your battle-axe into the ash-tree, and he came and foundyou; for so much of the story you had told me, when the beggar-child came andtook you away.”

“As soon as I saw him,” rejoined the knight, “I knew thatearthly arms availed not against such as he; and that my soul must meet him inits naked strength. So I unclasped my helm, and flung it on the ground; and,holding my good axe yet in my hand, gazed at him with steady eyes. On he came,a horror indeed, but I did not flinch. Endurance must conquer, where forcecould not reach. He came nearer and nearer, till the ghastly face was close tomine. A shudder as of death ran through me; but I think I did not move, for heseemed to quail, and retreated. As soon as he gave back, I struck one moresturdy blow on the stem of his tree, that the forest rang; and then looked athim again. He writhed and grinned with rage and apparent pain, and againapproached me, but retreated sooner than before. I heeded him no more, buthewed with a will at the tree, till the trunk creaked, and the head bowed, andwith a crash it fell to the earth. Then I looked up from my labour, and lo! thespectre had vanished, and I saw him no more; nor ever in my wanderings have Iheard of him again.”

“Well struck! well withstood! my hero,” said the lady.

“But,” said the knight, somewhat troubled, “dost thou lovethe youth still?”

“Ah!” she replied, “how can I help it? He woke me from worsethan death; he loved me. I had never been for thee, if he had not sought mefirst. But I love him not as I love thee. He was but the moon of my night; thouart the sun of my day, O beloved.”

“Thou art right,” returned the noble man. “It were hard,indeed, not to have some love in return for such a gift as he hath given thee.I, too, owe him more than words can speak.”

Humbled before them, with an aching and desolate heart, I yet could notrestrain my words:

“Let me, then, be the moon of thy night still, O woman! And when thy dayis beclouded, as the fairest days will be, let some song of mine comfort thee,as an old, withered, half-forgotten thing, that belongs to an ancient mournfulhour of uncompleted birth, which yet was beautiful in its time.”

They sat silent, and I almost thought they were listening. The colour of thelady’s eyes grew deeper and deeper; the slow tears grew, and filled them,and overflowed. They rose, and passed, hand in hand, close to where I stood;and each looked towards me in passing. Then they disappeared through a doorwhich closed behind them; but, ere it closed, I saw that the room into which itopened was a rich chamber, hung with gorgeous arras. I stood with an ocean ofsighs frozen in my bosom. I could remain no longer. She was near me, and Icould not see her; near me in the arms of one loved better than I, and I wouldnot see her, and I would not be by her. But how to escape from the nearness ofthe best beloved? I had not this time forgotten the mark; for the fact that Icould not enter the sphere of these living beings kept me aware that, for me, Imoved in a vision, while they moved in life. I looked all about for the mark,but could see it nowhere; for I avoided looking just where it was. There thedull red cipher glowed, on the very door of their secret chamber. Struck withagony, I dashed it open, and fell at the feet of the ancient woman, who stillspun on, the whole dissolved ocean of my sighs bursting from me in a storm oftearless sobs. Whether I fainted or slept, I do not know; but, as I returned toconsciousness, before I seemed to have power to move, I heard the womansinging, and could distinguish the words:

O light of dead and of dying days!
    O Love! in thy glory go,
In a rosy mist and a moony maze,
    O’er the pathless peaks of snow.

But what is left for the cold gray soul,
    That moans like a wounded dove?
One wine is left in the broken bowl!—
    ‘Tis—To love, and love and love.

Now I could weep. When she saw me weeping, she sang:

Better to sit at the waters’ birth,
    Than a sea of waves to win;
To live in the love that floweth forth,
    Than the love that cometh in.

Be thy heart a well of love, my child,
    Flowing, and free, and sure;
For a cistern of love, though undefiled,
    Keeps not the spirit pure.

I rose from the earth, loving the white lady as I had never loved her before.

Then I walked up to the door of Dismay, and opened it, and went out. And lo! Icame forth upon a crowded street, where men and women went to and fro inmultitudes. I knew it well; and, turning to one hand, walked sadly along thepavement. Suddenly I saw approaching me, a little way off, a form well known tome (well-known!—alas, how weak the word!) in the years when Ithought my boyhood was left behind, and shortly before I entered the realm ofFairy Land. Wrong and Sorrow had gone together, hand-in-hand as it is well theydo.

Unchangeably dear was that face. It lay in my heart as a child lies in its ownwhite bed; but I could not meet her.

“Anything but that,” I said, and, turning aside, sprang up thesteps to a door, on which I fancied I saw the mystic sign. I entered—notthe mysterious cottage, but her home. I rushed wildly on, and stood by the doorof her room.

“She is out,” I said, “I will see the old room oncemore.”

I opened the door gently, and stood in a great solemn church. A deep-tonedbell, whose sounds throbbed and echoed and swam through the empty building,struck the hour of midnight. The moon shone through the windows of theclerestory, and enough of the ghostly radiance was diffused through the churchto let me see, walking with a stately, yet somewhat trailing and stumblingstep, down the opposite aisle, for I stood in one of the transepts, a figuredressed in a white robe, whether for the night, or for that longer night whichlies too deep for the day, I could not tell. Was it she? and was this herchamber? I crossed the church, and followed. The figure stopped, seemed toascend as it were a high bed, and lay down. I reached the place where it lay,glimmering white. The bed was a tomb. The light was too ghostly to see clearly,but I passed my hand over the face and the hands and the feet, which were allbare. They were cold—they were marble, but I knew them. It grew dark. Iturned to retrace my steps, but found, ere long, that I had wandered into whatseemed a little chapel. I groped about, seeking the door. Everything I touchedbelonged to the dead. My hands fell on the cold effigy of a knight who lay withhis legs crossed and his sword broken beside him. He lay in his noble rest, andI lived on in ignoble strife. I felt for the left hand and a certain finger; Ifound there the ring I knew: he was one of my own ancestors. I was in thechapel over the burial-vault of my race. I called aloud: “If any of thedead are moving here, let them take pity upon me, for I, alas! am still alive;and let some dead woman comfort me, for I am a stranger in the land of thedead, and see no light.” A warm kiss alighted on my lips through thedark. And I said, “The dead kiss well; I will not be afraid.” And agreat hand was reached out of the dark, and grasped mine for a moment, mightilyand tenderly. I said to myself: “The veil between, though very dark, isvery thin.”

Groping my way further, I stumbled over the heavy stone that covered theentrance of the vault: and, in stumbling, descried upon the stone the mark,glowing in red fire. I caught the great ring. All my effort could not havemoved the huge slab; but it opened the door of the cottage, and I threw myselfonce more, pale and speechless, on the couch beside the ancient dame. She sangonce more:

Thou dreamest: on a rock thou art,
    High o’er the broken wave;
Thou fallest with a fearful start
    But not into thy grave;
For, waking in the morning’s light,
Thou smilest at the vanished night

So wilt thou sink, all pale and dumb,
    Into the fainting gloom;
But ere the coming terrors come,
    Thou wak’st—where is the tomb?
Thou wak’st—the dead ones smile above,
With hovering arms of sleepless love.

She paused; then sang again:

We weep for gladness, weep for grief;
    The tears they are the same;
We sigh for longing, and relief;
    The sighs have but one name,

And mingled in the dying strife,
    Are moans that are not sad
The pangs of death are throbs of life,
    Its sighs are sometimes glad.

The face is very strange and white:
    It is Earth’s only spot
That feebly flickers back the light
    The living seeth not.

I fell asleep, and slept a dreamless sleep, for I know not how long. When Iawoke, I found that my hostess had moved from where she had been sitting, andnow sat between me and the fourth door.

I guessed that her design was to prevent my entering there. I sprang from thecouch, and darted past her to the door. I opened it at once and went out. All Iremember is a cry of distress from the woman: “Don’t go there, mychild! Don’t go there!” But I was gone.

I knew nothing more; or, if I did, I had forgot it all when I awoke toconsciousness, lying on the floor of the cottage, with my head in the lap ofthe woman, who was weeping over me, and stroking my hair with both hands,talking to me as a mother might talk to a sick and sleeping, or a dead child.As soon as I looked up and saw her, she smiled through her tears; smiled withwithered face and young eyes, till her countenance was irradiated with thelight of the smile. Then she bathed my head and face and hands in an icy cold,colourless liquid, which smelt a little of damp earth. Immediately I was ableto sit up. She rose and put some food before me. When I had eaten, she said:“Listen to me, my child. You must leave me directly!”

“Leave you!” I said. “I am so happy with you. I never was sohappy in my life.”

“But you must go,” she rejoined sadly. “Listen! What do youhear?”

“I hear the sound as of a great throbbing of water.”

“Ah! you do hear it? Well, I had to go through that door—the doorof the Timeless” (and she shuddered as she pointed to the fourthdoor)—“to find you; for if I had not gone, you would never haveentered again; and because I went, the waters around my cottage will rise andrise, and flow and come, till they build a great firmament of waters over mydwelling. But as long as I keep my fire burning, they cannot enter. I have fuelenough for years; and after one year they will sink away again, and be just asthey were before you came. I have not been buried for a hundred yearsnow.” And she smiled and wept.

“Alas! alas!” I cried. “I have brought this evil on the bestand kindest of friends, who has filled my heart with great gifts.”

“Do not think of that,” she rejoined. “I can bear it verywell. You will come back to me some day, I know. But I beg you, for my sake, mydear child, to do one thing. In whatever sorrow you may be, howeverinconsolable and irremediable it may appear, believe me that the old woman inthe cottage, with the young eyes” (and she smiled), “knowssomething, though she must not always tell it, that would quite satisfy youabout it, even in the worst moments of your distress. Now you must go.”

“But how can I go, if the waters are all about, and if the doors all leadinto other regions and other worlds?”

“This is not an island,” she replied; “but is joined to theland by a narrow neck; and for the door, I will lead you myself through theright one.”

She took my hand, and led me through the third door; whereupon I found myselfstanding in the deep grassy turf on which I had landed from the little boat,but upon the opposite side of the cottage. She pointed out the direction I musttake, to find the isthmus and escape the rising waters.

Then putting her arms around me, she held me to her bosom; and as I kissed her,I felt as if I were leaving my mother for the first time, and could not helpweeping bitterly. At length she gently pushed me away, and with the words,“Go, my son, and do something worth doing,” turned back, and,entering the cottage, closed the door behind her. I felt very desolate as Iwent.

CHAPTER XX

“Thou hadst no fame; that which thou didst like good
Was but thy appetite that swayed thy blood
For that time to the best; for as a blast
That through a house comes, usually doth cast
Things out of order, yet by chance may come
And blow some one thing to his proper room,
So did thy appetite, and not thy zeal,
Sway thee by chance to do some one thing well.”
          FLETCHER’SFaithful Shepherdess.

“The noble hart that harbours vertuous thought
And is with childe of glorious great intent,
Can never rest, until it forth have brought
Th’ eternall brood of glorie excellent.”
          SPENSER, The Faerie Queene.

I had not gone very far before I felt that the turf beneath my feet was soakedwith the rising waters. But I reached the isthmus in safety. It was rocky, andso much higher than the level of the peninsula, that I had plenty of time tocross. I saw on each side of me the water rising rapidly, altogether withoutwind, or violent motion, or broken waves, but as if a slow strong fire wereglowing beneath it. Ascending a steep acclivity, I found myself at last in anopen, rocky country. After travelling for some hours, as nearly in a straightline as I could, I arrived at a lonely tower, built on the top of a littlehill, which overlooked the whole neighbouring country. As I approached, I heardthe clang of an anvil; and so rapid were the blows, that I despaired of makingmyself heard till a pause in the work should ensue. It was some minutes beforea cessation took place; but when it did, I knocked loudly, and had not long towait; for, a moment after, the door was partly opened by a noble-looking youth,half-undressed, glowing with heat, and begrimed with the blackness of theforge. In one hand he held a sword, so lately from the furnace that it yetshone with a dull fire. As soon as he saw me, he threw the door wide open, andstanding aside, invited me very cordially to enter. I did so; when he shut andbolted the door most carefully, and then led the way inwards. He brought meinto a rude hall, which seemed to occupy almost the whole of the ground floorof the little tower, and which I saw was now being used as a workshop. A hugefire roared on the hearth, beside which was an anvil. By the anvil stood, insimilar undress, and in a waiting attitude, hammer in hand, a second youth,tall as the former, but far more slightly built. Reversing the usual course ofperception in such meetings, I thought them, at first sight, very unlike; andat the second glance, knew that they were brothers. The former, and apparentlythe elder, was muscular and dark, with curling hair, and large hazel eyes,which sometimes grew wondrously soft. The second was slender and fair, yet witha countenance like an eagle, and an eye which, though pale blue, shone with analmost fierce expression. He stood erect, as if looking from a lofty mountaincrag, over a vast plain outstretched below. As soon as we entered the hall, theelder turned to me, and I saw that a glow of satisfaction shone on both theirfaces. To my surprise and great pleasure, he addressed me thus:

“Brother, will you sit by the fire and rest, till we finish this part ofour work?”

I signified my assent; and, resolved to await any disclosure they might beinclined to make, seated myself in silence near the hearth.

The elder brother then laid the sword in the fire, covered it well over, andwhen it had attained a sufficient degree of heat, drew it out and laid it onthe anvil, moving it carefully about, while the younger, with a succession ofquick smart blows, appeared either to be welding it, or hammering one part ofit to a consenting shape with the rest. Having finished, they laid it carefullyin the fire; and, when it was very hot indeed, plunged it into a vessel full ofsome liquid, whence a blue flame sprang upwards, as the glowing steel entered.

There they left it; and drawing two stools to the fire, sat down, one on eachside of me.

“We are very glad to see you, brother. We have been expecting you forsome days,” said the dark-haired youth.

“I am proud to be called your brother,” I rejoined; “and youwill not think I refuse the name, if I desire to know why you honour me withit?”

“Ah! then he does not know about it,” said the younger. “Wethought you had known of the bond betwixt us, and the work we have to dotogether. You must tell him, brother, from the first.”

So the elder began:

“Our father is king of this country. Before we were born, three giantbrothers had appeared in the land. No one knew exactly when, and no one had theleast idea whence they came. They took possession of a ruined castle that hadstood unchanged and unoccupied within the memory of any of the country people.The vaults of this castle had remained uninjured by time, and these, I presume,they made use of at first. They were rarely seen, and never offered the leastinjury to any one; so that they were regarded in the neighbourhood as at leastperfectly harmless, if not rather benevolent beings. But it began to beobserved, that the old castle had assumed somehow or other, no one knew when orhow, a somewhat different look from what it used to have. Not only were severalbreaches in the lower part of the walls built up, but actually some of thebattlements which yet stood, had been repaired, apparently to prevent them fromfalling into worse decay, while the more important parts were being restored.Of course, every one supposed the giants must have a hand in the work, but noone ever saw them engaged in it. The peasants became yet more uneasy, afterone, who had concealed himself, and watched all night, in the neighbourhood ofthe castle, reported that he had seen, in full moonlight, the three huge giantsworking with might and main, all night long, restoring to their former positionsome massive stones, formerly steps of a grand turnpike stair, a great portionof which had long since fallen, along with part of the wall of the round towerin which it had been built. This wall they were completing, foot by foot, alongwith the stair. But the people said they had no just pretext for interfering:although the real reason for letting the giants alone was, that everybody wasfar too much afraid of them to interrupt them.

“At length, with the help of a neighbouring quarry, the whole of theexternal wall of the castle was finished. And now the country folks were ingreater fear than before. But for several years the giants remained verypeaceful. The reason of this was afterwards supposed to be the fact, that theywere distantly related to several good people in the country; for, as long asthese lived, they remained quiet; but as soon as they were all dead the realnature of the giants broke out. Having completed the outside of their castle,they proceeded, by spoiling the country houses around them, to make a quietluxurious provision for their comfort within. Affairs reached such a pass, thatthe news of their robberies came to my father’s ears; but he, alas! wasso crippled in his resources, by a war he was carrying on with a neighbouringprince, that he could only spare a very few men, to attempt the capture oftheir stronghold. Upon these the giants issued in the night, and slew every manof them. And now, grown bolder by success and impunity, they no longer confinedtheir depredations to property, but began to seize the persons of theirdistinguished neighbours, knights and ladies, and hold them in durance, themisery of which was heightened by all manner of indignity, until they wereredeemed by their friends, at an exorbitant ransom. Many knights haveadventured their overthrow, but to their own instead; for they have all beenslain, or captured, or forced to make a hasty retreat. To crown theirenormities, if any man now attempts their destruction, they, immediately uponhis defeat, put one or more of their captives to a shameful death, on a turretin sight of all passers-by; so that they have been much less molested of late;and we, although we have burned, for years, to attack these demons and destroythem, dared not, for the sake of their captives, risk the adventure, before weshould have reached at least our earliest manhood. Now, however, we arepreparing for the attempt; and the grounds of this preparation are these.Having only the resolution, and not the experience necessary for theundertaking, we went and consulted a lonely woman of wisdom, who lives not veryfar from here, in the direction of the quarter from which you have come. Shereceived us most kindly, and gave us what seems to us the best of advice. Shefirst inquired what experience we had had in arms. We told her we had been wellexercised from our boyhood, and for some years had kept ourselves in constantpractice, with a view to this necessity.

“‘But you have not actually fought for life and death?’ saidshe.

“We were forced to confess we had not.

“‘So much the better in some respects,’ she replied.‘Now listen to me. Go first and work with an armourer, for as long timeas you find needful to obtain a knowledge of his craft; which will not be long,seeing your hearts will be all in the work. Then go to some lonely tower, youtwo alone. Receive no visits from man or woman. There forge for yourselvesevery piece of armour that you wish to wear, or to use, in your comingencounter. And keep up your exercises. As, however, two of you can be no matchfor the three giants, I will find you, if I can, a third brother, who will takeon himself the third share of the fight, and the preparation. Indeed, I havealready seen one who will, I think, be the very man for your fellowship, but itwill be some time before he comes to me. He is wandering now without an aim. Iwill show him to you in a glass, and, when he comes, you will know him at once.If he will share your endeavours, you must teach him all you know, and he willrepay you well, in present song, and in future deeds.’

“She opened the door of a curious old cabinet that stood in the room. Onthe inside of this door was an oval convex mirror. Looking in it for some time,we at length saw reflected the place where we stood, and the old dame seated inher chair. Our forms were not reflected. But at the feet of the dame lay ayoung man, yourself, weeping.

“‘Surely this youth will not serve our ends,’ said I,‘for he weeps.’

“The old woman smiled. ‘Past tears are present strength,’said she.

“‘Oh!’ said my brother, ‘I saw you weep once over aneagle you shot.’

“‘That was because it was so like you, brother,’ I replied;‘but indeed, this youth may have better cause for tears than that—Iwas wrong.’

“‘Wait a while,’ said the woman; ‘if I mistake not, hewill make you weep till your tears are dry for ever. Tears are the only curefor weeping. And you may have need of the cure, before you go forth to fightthe giants. You must wait for him, in your tower, till he comes.’

“Now if you will join us, we will soon teach you to make your armour; andwe will fight together, and work together, and love each other as never threeloved before. And you will sing to us, will you not?”

“That I will, when I can,” I answered; “but it is only attimes that the power of song comes upon me. For that I must wait; but I have afeeling that if I work well, song will not be far off to enliven thelabour.”

This was all the compact made: the brothers required nothing more, and I didnot think of giving anything more. I rose, and threw off my upper garments.

“I know the uses of the sword,” I said. “I am ashamed of mywhite hands beside yours so nobly soiled and hard; but that shame will soon bewiped away.”

“No, no; we will not work to-day. Rest is as needful as toil. Bring thewine, brother; it is your turn to serve to-day.”

The younger brother soon covered a table with rough viands, but good wine; andwe ate and drank heartily, beside our work. Before the meal was over, I hadlearned all their story. Each had something in his heart which made theconviction, that he would victoriously perish in the coming conflict, a realsorrow to him. Otherwise they thought they would have lived enough. The causesof their trouble were respectively these:

While they wrought with an armourer, in a city famed for workmanship in steeland silver, the elder had fallen in love with a lady as far beneath him in realrank, as she was above the station he had as apprentice to an armourer. Nor didhe seek to further his suit by discovering himself; but there was simply somuch manhood about him, that no one ever thought of rank when in his company.This is what his brother said about it. The lady could not help loving him inreturn. He told her when he left her, that he had a perilous adventure beforehim, and that when it was achieved, she would either see him return to claimher, or hear that he had died with honour. The younger brother’s griefarose from the fact, that, if they were both slain, his old father, the king,would be childless. His love for his father was so exceeding, that to oneunable to sympathise with it, it would have appeared extravagant. Both lovedhim equally at heart; but the love of the younger had been more developed,because his thoughts and anxieties had not been otherwise occupied. When athome, he had been his constant companion; and, of late, had ministered to theinfirmities of his growing age. The youth was never weary of listening to thetales of his sire’s youthful adventures; and had not yet in the smallestdegree lost the conviction, that his father was the greatest man in the world.The grandest triumph possible to his conception was, to return to his father,laden with the spoils of one of the hated giants. But they both were in somedread, lest the thought of the loneliness of these two might occur to them, inthe moment when decision was most necessary, and disturb, in some degree, theself-possession requisite for the success of their attempt. For, as I havesaid, they were yet untried in actual conflict. “Now,” thought I,“I see to what the powers of my gift must minister.” For my ownpart, I did not dread death, for I had nothing to care to live for; but Idreaded the encounter because of the responsibility connected with it. Iresolved however to work hard, and thus grow cool, and quick, and forceful.

The time passed away in work and song, in talk and ramble, in friendly fightand brotherly aid. I would not forge for myself armour of heavy mail liketheirs, for I was not so powerful as they, and depended more for any success Imight secure, upon nimbleness of motion, certainty of eye, and ready responseof hand. Therefore I began to make for myself a shirt of steel plates andrings; which work, while more troublesome, was better suited to me than theheavier labour. Much assistance did the brothers give me, even after, by theirinstructions, I was able to make some progress alone. Their work was in amoment abandoned, to render any required aid to mine. As the old woman hadpromised, I tried to repay them with song; and many were the tears they bothshed over my ballads and dirges. The songs they liked best to hear were twowhich I made for them. They were not half so good as many others I knew,especially some I had learned from the wise woman in the cottage; but whatcomes nearest to our needs we like the best.

I

The king sat on his throne
    Glowing in gold and red;
The crown in his right hand shone,
    And the gray hairs crowned his head.

His only son walks in,
    And in walls of steel he stands:
Make me, O father, strong to win,
    With the blessing of holy hands.”

He knelt before his sire,
    Who blessed him with feeble smile
His eyes shone out with a kingly fire,
    But his old lips quivered the while.

“Go to the fight, my son,
    Bring back the giant’s head;
And the crown with which my brows have done,
    Shall glitter on thine instead.”

“My father, I seek no crowns,
    But unspoken praise from thee;
For thy people’s good, and thy renown,
    I will die to set them free.”

The king sat down and waited there,
    And rose not, night nor day;
Till a sound of shouting filled the air,
    And cries of a sore dismay.

Then like a king he sat once more,
    With the crown upon his head;
And up to the throne the people bore
    A mighty giant dead.

And up to the throne the people bore
    A pale and lifeless boy.
The king rose up like a prophet of yore,
    In a lofty, deathlike joy.

He put the crown on the chilly brow:
    “Thou should’st have reigned with me
But Death is the king of both, and now
    I go to obey with thee.

“Surely some good in me there lay,
    To beget the noble one.”
The old man smiled like a winter day,
    And fell beside his son.

II

“O lady, thy lover is dead,” they cried;
    “He is dead, but hath slain the foe;
He hath left his name to be magnified
    In a song of wonder and woe.”

“Alas! I am well repaid,” said she,
    “With a pain that stings like joy:
For I feared, from his tenderness to me,
    That he was but a feeble boy.

“Now I shall hold my head on high,
    The queen among my kind;
If ye hear a sound, ‘tis only a sigh
    For a glory left behind.”

The first three times I sang these songs they both wept passionately. But afterthe third time, they wept no more. Their eyes shone, and their faces grew pale,but they never wept at any of my songs again.

CHAPTER XXI

“I put my life in my hands.”
          The Book of Judges.

At length, with much toil and equal delight, our armour was finished. We armedeach other, and tested the strength of the defence, with many blows of lovingforce. I was inferior in strength to both my brothers, but a little more agilethan either; and upon this agility, joined to precision in hitting with thepoint of my weapon, I grounded my hopes of success in the ensuing combat. Ilikewise laboured to develop yet more the keenness of sight with which I wasnaturally gifted; and, from the remarks of my companions, I soon learned thatmy endeavours were not in vain.

The morning arrived on which we had determined to make the attempt, and succeedor perish—perhaps both. We had resolved to fight on foot; knowing thatthe mishap of many of the knights who had made the attempt, had resulted fromthe fright of their horses at the appearance of the giants; and believing withSir Gawain, that, though mare’s sons might be false to us, the earthwould never prove a traitor. But most of our preparations were, in theirimmediate aim at least, frustrated.

We rose, that fatal morning, by daybreak. We had rested from all labour the daybefore, and now were fresh as the lark. We bathed in cold spring water, anddressed ourselves in clean garments, with a sense of preparation, as for asolemn festivity. When we had broken our fast, I took an old lyre, which I hadfound in the tower and had myself repaired, and sung for the last time the twoballads of which I have said so much already. I followed them with this, for aclosing song:

Oh, well for him who breaks his dream
    With the blow that ends the strife
And, waking, knows the peace that flows
    Around the pain of life!

We are dead, my brothers! Our bodies clasp,
    As an armour, our souls about;
This hand is the battle-axe I grasp,
    And this my hammer stout.

Fear not, my brothers, for we are dead;
    No noise can break our rest;
The calm of the grave is about the head,
    And the heart heaves not the breast.

And our life we throw to our people back,
    To live with, a further store;
We leave it them, that there be no lack
    In the land where we live no more.

Oh, well for him who breaks his dream
    With the blow that ends the strife
And, waking, knows the peace that flows
    Around the noise of life!

As the last few tones of the instrument were following, like a dirge, the deathof the song, we all sprang to our feet. For, through one of the little windowsof the tower, towards which I had looked as I sang, I saw, suddenly rising overthe edge of the slope on which our tower stood, three enormous heads. Thebrothers knew at once, by my looks, what caused my sudden movement. We wereutterly unarmed, and there was no time to arm.

But we seemed to adopt the same resolution simultaneously; for each caught uphis favourite weapon, and, leaving his defence behind, sprang to the door. Isnatched up a long rapier, abruptly, but very finely pointed, in my sword-hand,and in the other a sabre; the elder brother seized his heavy battle-axe; andthe younger, a great, two-handed sword, which he wielded in one hand like afeather. We had just time to get clear of the tower, embrace and say good-bye,and part to some little distance, that we might not encumber each other’smotions, ere the triple giant-brotherhood drew near to attack us. They wereabout twice our height, and armed to the teeth. Through the visors of theirhelmets their monstrous eyes shone with a horrible ferocity. I was in themiddle position, and the middle giant approached me. My eyes were busy with hisarmour, and I was not a moment in settling my mode of attack. I saw that hisbody-armour was somewhat clumsily made, and that the overlappings in the lowerpart had more play than necessary; and I hoped that, in a fortunate moment,some joint would open a little, in a visible and accessible part. I stood tillhe came near enough to aim a blow at me with the mace, which has been, in allages, the favourite weapon of giants, when, of course, I leaped aside, and letthe blow fall upon the spot where I had been standing. I expected this wouldstrain the joints of his armour yet more. Full of fury, he made at me again;but I kept him busy, constantly eluding his blows, and hoping thus to fatiguehim. He did not seem to fear any assault from me, and I attempted none as yet;but while I watched his motions in order to avoid his blows, I, at the sametime, kept equal watch upon those joints of his armour, through some one ofwhich I hoped to reach his life. At length, as if somewhat fatigued, he pauseda moment, and drew himself slightly up; I bounded forward, foot and hand, ranmy rapier right through to the armour of his back, let go the hilt, and passingunder his right arm, turned as he fell, and flew at him with my sabre. At onehappy blow I divided the band of his helmet, which fell off, and allowed me,with a second cut across the eyes, to blind him quite; after which I clove hishead, and turned, uninjured, to see how my brothers had fared. Both the giantswere down, but so were my brothers. I flew first to the one and then to theother couple. Both pairs of combatants were dead, and yet locked together, asin the death-struggle. The elder had buried his battle-axe in the body of hisfoe, and had fallen beneath him as he fell. The giant had strangled him in hisown death-agonies. The younger had nearly hewn off the left leg of his enemy;and, grappled with in the act, had, while they rolled together on the earth,found for his dagger a passage betwixt the gorget and cuirass of the giant, andstabbed him mortally in the throat. The blood from the giant’s throat wasyet pouring over the hand of his foe, which still grasped the hilt of thedagger sheathed in the wound. They lay silent. I, the least worthy, remainedthe sole survivor in the lists.

As I stood exhausted amidst the dead, after the first worthy deed of my life, Isuddenly looked behind me, and there lay the Shadow, black in the sunshine. Iwent into the lonely tower, and there lay the useless armour of the nobleyouths—supine as they.

Ah, how sad it looked! It was a glorious death, but it was death. My songscould not comfort me now. I was almost ashamed that I was alive, when they, thetrue-hearted, were no more. And yet I breathed freer to think that I had gonethrough the trial, and had not failed. And perhaps I may be forgiven, if somefeelings of pride arose in my bosom, when I looked down on the mighty form thatlay dead by my hand.

“After all, however,” I said to myself, and my heart sank,“it was only skill. Your giant was but a blunderer.”

I left the bodies of friends and foes, peaceful enough when the death-fight wasover, and, hastening to the country below, roused the peasants. They came withshouting and gladness, bringing waggons to carry the bodies. I resolved to takethe princes home to their father, each as he lay, in the arms of hiscountry’s foe. But first I searched the giants, and found the keys oftheir castle, to which I repaired, followed by a great company of the people.It was a place of wonderful strength. I released the prisoners, knights andladies, all in a sad condition, from the cruelties and neglects of the giants.It humbled me to see them crowding round me with thanks, when in truth theglorious brothers, lying dead by their lonely tower, were those to whom thethanks belonged. I had but aided in carrying out the thought born in theirbrain, and uttered in visible form before ever I laid hold thereupon. Yet I didcount myself happy to have been chosen for their brother in this great deed.

After a few hours spent in refreshing and clothing the prisoners, we allcommenced our journey towards the capital. This was slow at first; but, as thestrength and spirits of the prisoners returned, it became more rapid; and inthree days we reached the palace of the king. As we entered the city gates,with the huge bulks lying each on a waggon drawn by horses, and two of theminextricably intertwined with the dead bodies of their princes, the peopleraised a shout and then a cry, and followed in multitudes the solemnprocession.

I will not attempt to describe the behaviour of the grand old king. Joy andpride in his sons overcame his sorrow at their loss. On me he heaped everykindness that heart could devise or hand execute. He used to sit and questionme, night after night, about everything that was in any way connected with themand their preparations. Our mode of life, and relation to each other, duringthe time we spent together, was a constant theme. He entered into the minutestdetails of the construction of the armour, even to a peculiar mode of rivetingsome of the plates, with unwearying interest. This armour I had intended to begof the king, as my sole memorials of the contest; but, when I saw the delighthe took in contemplating it, and the consolation it appeared to afford him inhis sorrow, I could not ask for it; but, at his request, left my own, weaponsand all, to be joined with theirs in a trophy, erected in the grand square ofthe palace. The king, with gorgeous ceremony, dubbed me knight with his own oldhand, in which trembled the sword of his youth.

During the short time I remained, my company was, naturally, much courted bythe young nobles. I was in a constant round of gaiety and diversion,notwithstanding that the court was in mourning. For the country was so rejoicedat the death of the giants, and so many of their lost friends had been restoredto the nobility and men of wealth, that the gladness surpassed the grief.“Ye have indeed left your lives to your people, my great brothers!”I said.

But I was ever and ever haunted by the old shadow, which I had not seen all thetime that I was at work in the tower. Even in the society of the ladies of thecourt, who seemed to think it only their duty to make my stay there as pleasantto me as possible, I could not help being conscious of its presence, althoughit might not be annoying me at the time. At length, somewhat weary ofuninterrupted pleasure, and nowise strengthened thereby, either in body ormind, I put on a splendid suit of armour of steel inlaid with silver, which theold king had given me, and, mounting the horse on which it had been brought tome, took my leave of the palace, to visit the distant city in which the ladydwelt, whom the elder prince had loved. I anticipated a sore task, in conveyingto her the news of his glorious fate: but this trial was spared me, in a manneras strange as anything that had happened to me in Fairy Land.

CHAPTER XXII

“No one has my form but the I.”
          Schoppe, in JEANPAUL’STitan.

“Joy’s a subtil elf.
I think man’s happiest when he forgets himself.”
          CYRILTOURNEUR, The Revenger’s Tragedy.

On the third day of my journey, I was riding gently along a road, apparentlylittle frequented, to judge from the grass that grew upon it. I was approachinga forest. Everywhere in Fairy Land forests are the places where one may mostcertainly expect adventures. As I drew near, a youth, unarmed, gentle, andbeautiful, who had just cut a branch from a yew growing on the skirts of thewood, evidently to make himself a bow, met me, and thus accosted me:

“Sir knight, be careful as thou ridest through this forest; for it issaid to be strangely enchanted, in a sort which even those who have beenwitnesses of its enchantment can hardly describe.”

I thanked him for his advice, which I promised to follow, and rode on. But themoment I entered the wood, it seemed to me that, if enchantment there was, itmust be of a good kind; for the Shadow, which had been more than usually darkand distressing, since I had set out on this journey, suddenly disappeared. Ifelt a wonderful elevation of spirits, and began to reflect on my past life,and especially on my combat with the giants, with such satisfaction, that I hadactually to remind myself, that I had only killed one of them; and that, butfor the brothers, I should never have had the idea of attacking them, not tomention the smallest power of standing to it. Still I rejoiced, and countedmyself amongst the glorious knights of old; having even the unspeakablepresumption—my shame and self-condemnation at the memory of it are such,that I write it as the only and sorest penance I can perform—to think ofmyself (will the world believe it?) as side by side with Sir Galahad! Scarcelyhad the thought been born in my mind, when, approaching me from the left,through the trees, I espied a resplendent knight, of mighty size, whose armourseemed to shine of itself, without the sun. When he drew near, I was astonishedto see that this armour was like my own; nay, I could trace, line for line, thecorrespondence of the inlaid silver to the device on my own. His horse, too,was like mine in colour, form, and motion; save that, like his rider, he wasgreater and fiercer than his counterpart. The knight rode with beaver up. As hehalted right opposite to me in the narrow path, barring my way, I saw thereflection of my countenance in the centre plate of shining steel on hisbreastplate. Above it rose the same face—his face—only, as I havesaid, larger and fiercer. I was bewildered. I could not help feeling someadmiration of him, but it was mingled with a dim conviction that he was evil,and that I ought to fight with him.

“Let me pass,” I said.

“When I will,” he replied.

Something within me said: “Spear in rest, and ride at him! else thou artfor ever a slave.”

I tried, but my arm trembled so much, that I could not couch my lance. To tellthe truth, I, who had overcome the giant, shook like a coward before thisknight. He gave a scornful laugh, that echoed through the wood, turned hishorse, and said, without looking round, “Follow me.”

I obeyed, abashed and stupefied. How long he led, and how long I followed, Icannot tell. “I never knew misery before,” I said to myself.“Would that I had at least struck him, and had had my death-blow inreturn! Why, then, do I not call to him to wheel and defend himself? Alas! Iknow not why, but I cannot. One look from him would cow me like a beatenhound.” I followed, and was silent.

At length we came to a dreary square tower, in the middle of a dense forest. Itlooked as if scarce a tree had been cut down to make room for it. Across thevery door, diagonally, grew the stem of a tree, so large that there was justroom to squeeze past it in order to enter. One miserable square hole in theroof was the only visible suggestion of a window. Turret or battlement, orprojecting masonry of any kind, it had none. Clear and smooth and massy, itrose from its base, and ended with a line straight and unbroken. The roof,carried to a centre from each of the four walls, rose slightly to the pointwhere the rafters met. Round the base lay several little heaps of either bitsof broken branches, withered and peeled, or half-whitened bones; I could notdistinguish which. As I approached, the ground sounded hollow beneath myhorse’s hoofs. The knight took a great key from his pocket, and reachingpast the stem of the tree, with some difficulty opened the door.“Dismount,” he commanded. I obeyed. He turned my horse’s headaway from the tower, gave him a terrible blow with the flat side of his sword,and sent him madly tearing through the forest.

“Now,” said he, “enter, and take your companion withyou.”

I looked round: knight and horse had vanished, and behind me lay the horribleshadow. I entered, for I could not help myself; and the shadow followed me. Ihad a terrible conviction that the knight and he were one. The door closedbehind me.

Now I was indeed in pitiful plight. There was literally nothing in the towerbut my shadow and me. The walls rose right up to the roof; in which, as I hadseen from without, there was one little square opening. This I now knew to bethe only window the tower possessed. I sat down on the floor, in listlesswretchedness. I think I must have fallen asleep, and have slept for hours; forI suddenly became aware of existence, in observing that the moon was shiningthrough the hole in the roof. As she rose higher and higher, her light creptdown the wall over me, till at last it shone right upon my head.Instantaneously the walls of the tower seemed to vanish away like a mist. I satbeneath a beech, on the edge of a forest, and the open country lay, in themoonlight, for miles and miles around me, spotted with glimmering houses andspires and towers. I thought with myself, “Oh, joy! it was only a dream;the horrible narrow waste is gone, and I wake beneath a beech-tree, perhaps onethat loves me, and I can go where I will.” I rose, as I thought, andwalked about, and did what I would, but ever kept near the tree; for always,and, of course, since my meeting with the woman of the beech-tree far more thanever, I loved that tree. So the night wore on. I waited for the sun to rise,before I could venture to renew my journey. But as soon as the first faintlight of the dawn appeared, instead of shining upon me from the eye of themorning, it stole like a fainting ghost through the little square hole above myhead; and the walls came out as the light grew, and the glorious night wasswallowed up of the hateful day. The long dreary day passed. My shadow layblack on the floor. I felt no hunger, no need of food. The night came. The moonshone. I watched her light slowly descending the wall, as I might have watched,adown the sky, the long, swift approach of a helping angel. Her rays touchedme, and I was free. Thus night after night passed away. I should have died butfor this. Every night the conviction returned, that I was free. Every morning Isat wretchedly disconsolate. At length, when the course of the moon no longerpermitted her beams to touch me, the night was dreary as the day.

When I slept, I was somewhat consoled by my dreams; but all the time I dreamed,I knew that I was only dreaming. But one night, at length, the moon, a mereshred of pallor, scattered a few thin ghostly rays upon me; and I think I fellasleep and dreamed. I sat in an autumn night before the vintage, on a hilloverlooking my own castle. My heart sprang with joy. Oh, to be a child again,innocent, fearless, without shame or desire! I walked down to the castle. Allwere in consternation at my absence. My sisters were weeping for my loss. Theysprang up and clung to me, with incoherent cries, as I entered. My old friendscame flocking round me. A gray light shone on the roof of the hall. It was thelight of the dawn shining through the square window of my tower. More earnestlythan ever, I longed for freedom after this dream; more drearily than ever,crept on the next wretched day. I measured by the sunbeams, caught through thelittle window in the trap of my tower, how it went by, waiting only for thedreams of the night.

About noon, I started as if something foreign to all my senses and all myexperience, had suddenly invaded me; yet it was only the voice of a womansinging. My whole frame quivered with joy, surprise, and the sensation of theunforeseen. Like a living soul, like an incarnation of Nature, the song enteredmy prison-house. Each tone folded its wings, and laid itself, like a caressingbird, upon my heart. It bathed me like a sea; inwrapt me like an odorousvapour; entered my soul like a long draught of clear spring-water; shone uponme like essential sunlight; soothed me like a mother’s voice and hand.Yet, as the clearest forest-well tastes sometimes of the bitterness of decayedleaves, so to my weary, prisoned heart, its cheerfulness had a sting of cold,and its tenderness unmanned me with the faintness of long-departed joys. I wepthalf-bitterly, half-luxuriously; but not long. I dashed away the tears, ashamedof a weakness which I thought I had abandoned. Ere I knew, I had walked to thedoor, and seated myself with my ears against it, in order to catch everysyllable of the revelation from the unseen outer world. And now I heard eachword distinctly. The singer seemed to be standing or sitting near the tower,for the sounds indicated no change of place. The song was something like this:

The sun, like a golden knot on high,
Gathers the glories of the sky,
And binds them into a shining tent,
Roofing the world with the firmament.
And through the pavilion the rich winds blow,
And through the pavilion the waters go.
And the birds for joy, and the trees for prayer,
Bowing their heads in the sunny air,
And for thoughts, the gently talking springs,
That come from the centre with secret things—
All make a music, gentle and strong,
Bound by the heart into one sweet song.
And amidst them all, the mother Earth
Sits with the children of her birth;
She tendeth them all, as a mother hen
Her little ones round her, twelve or ten:
Oft she sitteth, with hands on knee,
Idle with love for her family.
Go forth to her from the dark and the dust,
And weep beside her, if weep thou must;
If she may not hold thee to her breast,
Like a weary infant, that cries for rest
At least she will press thee to her knee,
And tell a low, sweet tale to thee,
Till the hue to thy cheeky and the light to thine eye,
Strength to thy limbs, and courage high
To thy fainting heart, return amain,
And away to work thou goest again.
From the narrow desert, O man of pride,
Come into the house, so high and wide.

Hardly knowing what I did, I opened the door. Why had I not done so before? Ido not know.

At first I could see no one; but when I had forced myself past the tree whichgrew across the entrance, I saw, seated on the ground, and leaning against thetree, with her back to my prison, a beautiful woman. Her countenance seemedknown to me, and yet unknown. She looked at me and smiled, when I made myappearance.

“Ah! were you the prisoner there? I am very glad I have wiled youout.”

“Do you know me then?”

“Do you not know me? But you hurt me, and that, I suppose, makes it easyfor a man to forget. You broke my globe. Yet I thank you. Perhaps I owe youmany thanks for breaking it. I took the pieces, all black, and wet with cryingover them, to the Fairy Queen. There was no music and no light in them now. Butshe took them from me, and laid them aside; and made me go to sleep in a greathall of white, with black pillars, and many red curtains. When I woke in themorning, I went to her, hoping to have my globe again, whole and sound; but shesent me away without it, and I have not seen it since. Nor do I care for itnow. I have something so much better. I do not need the globe to play to me;for I can sing. I could not sing at all before. Now I go about everywherethrough Fairy Land, singing till my heart is like to break, just like my globe,for very joy at my own songs. And wherever I go, my songs do good, and deliverpeople. And now I have delivered you, and I am so happy.”

She ceased, and the tears came into her eyes.

All this time, I had been gazing at her; and now fully recognised the face ofthe child, glorified in the countenance of the woman.

I was ashamed and humbled before her; but a great weight was lifted from mythoughts. I knelt before her, and thanked her, and begged her to forgive me.

“Rise, rise,” she said; “I have nothing to forgive; I thankyou. But now I must be gone, for I do not know how many may be waiting for me,here and there, through the dark forests; and they cannot come out till Icome.”

She rose, and with a smile and a farewell, turned and left me. I dared not askher to stay; in fact, I could hardly speak to her. Between her and me, therewas a great gulf. She was uplifted, by sorrow and well-doing, into a region Icould hardly hope ever to enter. I watched her departure, as one watches asunset. She went like a radiance through the dark wood, which was henceforthbright to me, from simply knowing that such a creature was in it.

She was bearing the sun to the unsunned spots. The light and the music of herbroken globe were now in her heart and her brain. As she went, she sang; and Icaught these few words of her song; and the tones seemed to linger and windabout the trees after she had disappeared:

Thou goest thine, and I go mine—
    Many ways we wend;
Many days, and many ways,
    Ending in one end.

Many a wrong, and its curing song;
    Many a road, and many an inn;
Room to roam, but only one home
    For all the world to win.

And so she vanished. With a sad heart, soothed by humility, and the knowledgeof her peace and gladness, I bethought me what now I should do. First, I mustleave the tower far behind me, lest, in some evil moment, I might be once morecaged within its horrible walls. But it was ill walking in my heavy armour; andbesides I had now no right to the golden spurs and the resplendent mail, fitlydulled with long neglect. I might do for a squire; but I honoured knighthoodtoo highly, to call myself any longer one of the noble brotherhood. I strippedoff all my armour, piled it under the tree, just where the lady had beenseated, and took my unknown way, eastward through the woods. Of all my weapons,I carried only a short axe in my hand.

Then first I knew the delight of being lowly; of saying to myself, “I amwhat I am, nothing more.” “I have failed,” I said, “Ihave lost myself—would it had been my shadow.” I looked round: theshadow was nowhere to be seen. Ere long, I learned that it was not myself, butonly my shadow, that I had lost. I learned that it is better, a thousand-fold,for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his prideand fancied innocence. I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be aman; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of hismanhood. In nothing was my ideal lowered, or dimmed, or grown less precious; Ionly saw it too plainly, to set myself for a moment beside it. Indeed, my idealsoon became my life; whereas, formerly, my life had consisted in a vain attemptto behold, if not my ideal in myself, at least myself in my ideal. Now,however, I took, at first, what perhaps was a mistaken pleasure, in despisingand degrading myself. Another self seemed to arise, like a white spirit from adead man, from the dumb and trampled self of the past. Doubtless, this selfmust again die and be buried, and again, from its tomb, spring a winged child;but of this my history as yet bears not the record.

Self will come to life even in the slaying of self; but there is ever somethingdeeper and stronger than it, which will emerge at last from the unknown abyssesof the soul: will it be as a solemn gloom, burning with eyes? or a clearmorning after the rain? or a smiling child, that finds itself nowhere, andeverywhere?

CHAPTER XXIII

“High erected thought, seated in a heart of courtesy.”
          SIRPHILIPSIDNEY.

“A sweet attractive kinde of grace,
    A full assurance given by lookes,
Continuall comfort in a face,
    The lineaments of Gospel bookes.”
          MATTHEWROYDON, on Sir Philip Sidney.

I had not gone far, for I had but just lost sight of the hated tower, when avoice of another sort, sounding near or far, as the trees permitted orintercepted its passage, reached me. It was a full, deep, manly voice, butwithal clear and melodious. Now it burst on the ear with a sudden swell, andanon, dying away as suddenly, seemed to come to me across a great space.Nevertheless, it drew nearer; till, at last, I could distinguish the words ofthe song, and get transient glimpses of the singer, between the columns of thetrees. He came nearer, dawning upon me like a growing thought. He was a knight,armed from head to heel, mounted upon a strange-looking beast, whose form Icould not understand. The words which I heard him sing were like these:

Heart be stout,
    And eye be true;
Good blade out!
    And ill shall rue.

Courage, horse!
    Thou lackst no skill;
Well thy force
    Hath matched my will.

For the foe
    With fiery breath,
At a blow,
    Is still in death.

Gently, horse!
    Tread fearlessly;
‘Tis his corse
    That burdens thee.

The sun’s eye
    Is fierce at noon;
Thou and I
    Will rest full soon.

And new strength
    New work will meet;
Till, at length,
    Long rest is sweet.

And now horse and rider had arrived near enough for me to see, fastened by thelong neck to the hinder part of the saddle, and trailing its hideous length onthe ground behind, the body of a great dragon. It was no wonder that, with sucha drag at his heels, the horse could make but slow progress, notwithstandinghis evident dismay. The horrid, serpent-like head, with its black tongue,forked with red, hanging out of its jaws, dangled against the horse’sside. Its neck was covered with long blue hair, its sides with scales of greenand gold. Its back was of corrugated skin, of a purple hue. Its belly wassimilar in nature, but its colour was leaden, dashed with blotches of lividblue. Its skinny, bat-like wings and its tail were of a dull gray. It wasstrange to see how so many gorgeous colours, so many curving lines, and suchbeautiful things as wings and hair and scales, combined to form the horriblecreature, intense in ugliness.

The knight was passing me with a salutation; but, as I walked towards him, hereined up, and I stood by his stirrup. When I came near him, I saw to mysurprise and pleasure likewise, although a sudden pain, like a birth of fire,sprang up in my heart, that it was the knight of the soiled armour, whom I knewbefore, and whom I had seen in the vision, with the lady of the marble. But Icould have thrown my arms around him, because she loved him. This discoveryonly strengthened the resolution I had formed, before I recognised him, ofoffering myself to the knight, to wait upon him as a squire, for he seemed tobe unattended. I made my request in as few words as possible. He hesitated fora moment, and looked at me thoughtfully. I saw that he suspected who I was, butthat he continued uncertain of his suspicion. No doubt he was soon convinced ofits truth; but all the time I was with him, not a word crossed his lips withreference to what he evidently concluded I wished to leave unnoticed, if not tokeep concealed.

“Squire and knight should be friends,” said he: “can you takeme by the hand?” And he held out the great gauntleted right hand. Igrasped it willingly and strongly. Not a word more was said. The knight gavethe sign to his horse, which again began his slow march, and I walked besideand a little behind.

We had not gone very far before we arrived at a little cottage; from which, aswe drew near, a woman rushed out with the cry:

“My child! my child! have you found my child?”

“I have found her,” replied the knight, “but she is sorelyhurt. I was forced to leave her with the hermit, as I returned. You will findher there, and I think she will get better. You see I have brought you apresent. This wretch will not hurt you again.” And he undid thecreature’s neck, and flung the frightful burden down by the cottage door.

The woman was now almost out of sight in the wood; but the husband stood at thedoor, with speechless thanks in his face.

“You must bury the monster,” said the knight. “If I hadarrived a moment later, I should have been too late. But now you need not fear,for such a creature as this very rarely appears, in the same part, twice duringa lifetime.”

“Will you not dismount and rest you, Sir Knight?” said the peasant,who had, by this time, recovered himself a little.

“That I will, thankfully,” said he; and, dismounting, he gave thereins to me, and told me to unbridle the horse, and lead him into the shade.“You need not tie him up,” he added; “he will not runaway.”

When I returned, after obeying his orders, and entered the cottage, I saw theknight seated, without his helmet, and talking most familiarly with the simplehost. I stood at the open door for a moment, and, gazing at him, inwardlyjustified the white lady in preferring him to me. A nobler countenance I neversaw. Loving-kindness beamed from every line of his face. It seemed as if hewould repay himself for the late arduous combat, by indulging in all thegentleness of a womanly heart. But when the talk ceased for a moment, he seemedto fall into a reverie. Then the exquisite curves of the upper lip vanished.The lip was lengthened and compressed at the same moment. You could have toldthat, within the lips, the teeth were firmly closed. The whole face grew sternand determined, all but fierce; only the eyes burned on like a holy sacrifice,uplift on a granite rock.

The woman entered, with her mangled child in her arms. She was pale as herlittle burden. She gazed, with a wild love and despairing tenderness, on thestill, all but dead face, white and clear from loss of blood and terror.

The knight rose. The light that had been confined to his eyes, now shone fromhis whole countenance. He took the little thing in his arms, and, with themother’s help, undressed her, and looked to her wounds. The tears floweddown his face as he did so. With tender hands he bound them up, kissed the palecheek, and gave her back to her mother. When he went home, all his tale wouldbe of the grief and joy of the parents; while to me, who had looked on, thegracious countenance of the armed man, beaming from the panoply of steel, overthe seemingly dead child, while the powerful hands turned it and shifted it,and bound it, if possible even more gently than the mother’s, formed thecentre of the story.

After we had partaken of the best they could give us, the knight took hisleave, with a few parting instructions to the mother as to how she should treatthe child.

I brought the knight his steed, held the stirrup while he mounted, and thenfollowed him through the wood. The horse, delighted to be free of his hideousload, bounded beneath the weight of man and armour, and could hardly berestrained from galloping on. But the knight made him time his powers to mine,and so we went on for an hour or two. Then the knight dismounted, and compelledme to get into the saddle, saying: “Knight and squire must share thelabour.”

Holding by the stirrup, he walked along by my side, heavily clad as he was,with apparent ease. As we went, he led a conversation, in which I took whathumble part my sense of my condition would permit me.

“Somehow or other,” said he, “notwithstanding the beauty ofthis country of Faerie, in which we are, there is much that is wrong in it. Ifthere are great splendours, there are corresponding horrors; heights anddepths; beautiful women and awful fiends; noble men and weaklings. All a manhas to do, is to better what he can. And if he will settle it with himself,that even renown and success are in themselves of no great value, and becontent to be defeated, if so be that the fault is not his; and so go to hiswork with a cool brain and a strong will, he will get it done; and fare nonethe worse in the end, that he was not burdened with provision andprecaution.”

“But he will not always come off well,” I ventured to say.

“Perhaps not,” rejoined the knight, “in the individual act;but the result of his lifetime will content him.”

“So it will fare with you, doubtless,” thought I; “but forme—-”

Venturing to resume the conversation after a pause, I said, hesitatingly:

“May I ask for what the little beggar-girl wanted your aid, when she cameto your castle to find you?”

He looked at me for a moment in silence, and then said—

“I cannot help wondering how you know of that; but there is somethingabout you quite strange enough to entitle you to the privilege of the country;namely, to go unquestioned. I, however, being only a man, such as you see me,am ready to tell you anything you like to ask me, as far as I can. The littlebeggar-girl came into the hall where I was sitting, and told me a very curiousstory, which I can only recollect very vaguely, it was so peculiar. What I canrecall is, that she was sent to gather wings. As soon as she had gathered apair of wings for herself, she was to fly away, she said, to the country shecame from; but where that was, she could give no information.

“She said she had to beg her wings from the butterflies and moths; andwherever she begged, no one refused her. But she needed a great many of thewings of butterflies and moths to make a pair for her; and so she had to wanderabout day after day, looking for butterflies, and night after night, lookingfor moths; and then she begged for their wings. But the day before, she hadcome into a part of the forest, she said, where there were multitudes ofsplendid butterflies flitting about, with wings which were just fit to make theeyes in the shoulders of hers; and she knew she could have as many of them asshe liked for the asking; but as soon as she began to beg, there came a greatcreature right up to her, and threw her down, and walked over her. When she gotup, she saw the wood was full of these beings stalking about, and seeming tohave nothing to do with each other. As soon as ever she began to beg, one ofthem walked over her; till at last in dismay, and in growing horror of thesenseless creatures, she had run away to look for somebody to help her. I askedher what they were like. She said, like great men, made of wood, withoutknee-or elbow-joints, and without any noses or mouths or eyes in their faces. Ilaughed at the little maiden, thinking she was making child’s game of me;but, although she burst out laughing too, she persisted in asserting the truthof her story.”

“‘Only come, knight, come and see; I will lead you.’

“So I armed myself, to be ready for anything that might happen, andfollowed the child; for, though I could make nothing of her story, I could seeshe was a little human being in need of some help or other. As she walkedbefore me, I looked attentively at her. Whether or not it was from being sooften knocked down and walked over, I could not tell, but her clothes were verymuch torn, and in several places her white skin was peeping through. I thoughtshe was hump-backed; but on looking more closely, I saw, through the tatters ofher frock—do not laugh at me—a bunch on each shoulder, of the mostgorgeous colours. Looking yet more closely, I saw that they were of the shapeof folded wings, and were made of all kinds of butterfly-wings and moth-wings,crowded together like the feathers on the individual butterfly pinion; but,like them, most beautifully arranged, and producing a perfect harmony of colourand shade. I could now more easily believe the rest of her story; especially asI saw, every now and then, a certain heaving motion in the wings, as if theylonged to be uplifted and outspread. But beneath her scanty garments completewings could not be concealed, and indeed, from her own story, they were yetunfinished.

“After walking for two or three hours (how the little girl found her way,I could not imagine), we came to a part of the forest, the very air of whichwas quivering with the motions of multitudes of resplendent butterflies; asgorgeous in colour, as if the eyes of peacocks’ feathers had taken toflight, but of infinite variety of hue and form, only that the appearance ofsome kind of eye on each wing predominated. ‘There they are, there theyare!’ cried the child, in a tone of victory mingled with terror. Exceptfor this tone, I should have thought she referred to the butterflies, for Icould see nothing else. But at that moment an enormous butterfly, whose wingshad great eyes of blue surrounded by confused cloudy heaps of more dingycolouring, just like a break in the clouds on a stormy day towards evening,settled near us. The child instantly began murmuring: ‘Butterfly,butterfly, give me your wings’; when, the moment after, she fell to theground, and began crying as if hurt. I drew my sword and heaved a great blow inthe direction in which the child had fallen. It struck something, and instantlythe most grotesque imitation of a man became visible. You see this Fairy Landis full of oddities and all sorts of incredibly ridiculous things, which a manis compelled to meet and treat as real existences, although all the time hefeels foolish for doing so. This being, if being it could be called, was like ablock of wood roughly hewn into the mere outlines of a man; and hardly so, forit had but head, body, legs, and arms—the head without a face, and thelimbs utterly formless. I had hewn off one of its legs, but the two portionsmoved on as best they could, quite independent of each other; so that I haddone no good. I ran after it, and clove it in twain from the head downwards;but it could not be convinced that its vocation was not to walk over people;for, as soon as the little girl began her begging again, all three parts camebustling up; and if I had not interposed my weight between her and them, shewould have been trampled again under them. I saw that something else must bedone. If the wood was full of the creatures, it would be an endless work tochop them so small that they could do no injury; and then, besides, the partswould be so numerous, that the butterflies would be in danger from the drift offlying chips. I served this one so, however; and then told the girl to begagain, and point out the direction in which one was coming. I was glad to find,however, that I could now see him myself, and wondered how they could have beeninvisible before. I would not allow him to walk over the child; but while Ikept him off, and she began begging again, another appeared; and it was all Icould do, from the weight of my armour, to protect her from the stupid,persevering efforts of the two. But suddenly the right plan occurred to me. Itripped one of them up, and, taking him by the legs, set him up on his head,with his heels against a tree. I was delighted to find he could not move.Meantime the poor child was walked over by the other, but it was for the lasttime. Whenever one appeared, I followed the same plan—tripped him up andset him on his head; and so the little beggar was able to gather her wingswithout any trouble, which occupation she continued for several hours in mycompany.”

“What became of her?” I asked.

“I took her home with me to my castle, and she told me all her story; butit seemed to me, all the time, as if I were hearing a child talk in its sleep.I could not arrange her story in my mind at all, although it seemed to leavehers in some certain order of its own. My wife—-”

Here the knight checked himself, and said no more. Neither did I urge theconversation farther.

Thus we journeyed for several days, resting at night in such shelter as wecould get; and when no better was to be had, lying in the forest under sometree, on a couch of old leaves.

I loved the knight more and more. I believe never squire served his master withmore care and joyfulness than I. I tended his horse; I cleaned his armour; myskill in the craft enabled me to repair it when necessary; I watched his needs;and was well repaid for all by the love itself which I bore him.

“This,” I said to myself, “is a true man. I will serve him,and give him all worship, seeing in him the imbodiment of what I would fainbecome. If I cannot be noble myself, I will yet be servant to hisnobleness.” He, in return, soon showed me such signs of friendship andrespect, as made my heart glad; and I felt that, after all, mine would be nolost life, if I might wait on him to the world’s end, although no smilebut his should greet me, and no one but him should say, “Well done! hewas a good servant!” at last. But I burned to do something more for himthan the ordinary routine of a squire’s duty permitted.

One afternoon, we began to observe an appearance of roads in the wood. Brancheshad been cut down, and openings made, where footsteps had worn no path below.These indications increased as we passed on, till, at length, we came into along, narrow avenue, formed by felling the trees in its line, as the remainingroots evidenced. At some little distance, on both hands, we observed signs ofsimilar avenues, which appeared to converge with ours, towards one spot. Alongthese we indistinctly saw several forms moving, which seemed, with ourselves,to approach the common centre. Our path brought us, at last, up to a wall ofyew-trees, growing close together, and intertwining their branches so, thatnothing could be seen beyond it. An opening was cut in it like a door, and allthe wall was trimmed smooth and perpendicular. The knight dismounted, andwaited till I had provided for his horse’s comfort; upon which we enteredthe place together.

It was a great space, bare of trees, and enclosed by four walls of yew, similarto that through which we had entered. These trees grew to a very great height,and did not divide from each other till close to the top, where their summitsformed a row of conical battlements all around the walls. The space containedwas a parallelogram of great length. Along each of the two longer sides of theinterior, were ranged three ranks of men, in white robes, standing silent andsolemn, each with a sword by his side, although the rest of his costume andbearing was more priestly than soldierly. For some distance inwards, the spacebetween these opposite rows was filled with a company of men and women andchildren, in holiday attire. The looks of all were directed inwards, towardsthe further end. Far beyond the crowd, in a long avenue, seeming to narrow inthe distance, went the long rows of the white-robed men. On what the attentionof the multitude was fixed, we could not tell, for the sun had set before wearrived, and it was growing dark within. It grew darker and darker. Themultitude waited in silence. The stars began to shine down into the enclosure,and they grew brighter and larger every moment. A wind arose, and swayed thepinnacles of the tree-tops; and made a strange sound, half like music, halflike moaning, through the close branches and leaves of the tree-walls. A younggirl who stood beside me, clothed in the same dress as the priests, bowed herhead, and grew pale with awe.

The knight whispered to me, “How solemn it is! Surely they wait to hearthe voice of a prophet. There is something good near!”

But I, though somewhat shaken by the feeling expressed by my master, yet had anunaccountable conviction that here was something bad. So I resolved to bekeenly on the watch for what should follow.

Suddenly a great star, like a sun, appeared high in the air over the temple,illuminating it throughout; and a great song arose from the men in white, whichwent rolling round and round the building, now receding to the end, and nowapproaching, down the other side, the place where we stood. For some of thesingers were regularly ceasing, and the next to them as regularly taking up thesong, so that it crept onwards with gradations produced by changes which couldnot themselves be detected, for only a few of those who were singing ceased atthe same moment. The song paused; and I saw a company of six of the white-robedmen walk up the centre of the human avenue, surrounding a youth gorgeouslyattired beneath his robe of white, and wearing a chaplet of flowers on hishead. I followed them closely, with my keenest observation; and, byaccompanying their slow progress with my eyes, I was able to perceive moreclearly what took place when they arrived at the other end. I knew that mysight was so much more keen than that of most people, that I had good reason tosuppose I should see more than the rest could, at such a distance. At thefarther end a throne stood upon a platform, high above the heads of thesurrounding priests. To this platform I saw the company begin to ascend,apparently by an inclined plane or gentle slope. The throne itself was elevatedagain, on a kind of square pedestal, to the top of which led a flight of steps.On the throne sat a majestic-looking figure, whose posture seemed to indicate amixture of pride and benignity, as he looked down on the multitude below. Thecompany ascended to the foot of the throne, where they all kneeled for someminutes; then they rose and passed round to the side of the pedestal upon whichthe throne stood. Here they crowded close behind the youth, putting him in theforemost place, and one of them opened a door in the pedestal, for the youth toenter. I was sure I saw him shrink back, and those crowding behind pushed himin. Then, again, arose a burst of song from the multitude in white, whichlasted some time. When it ceased, a new company of seven commenced its march upthe centre. As they advanced, I looked up at my master: his noble countenancewas full of reverence and awe. Incapable of evil himself, he could scarcelysuspect it in another, much less in a multitude such as this, and surroundedwith such appearances of solemnity. I was certain it was the really grandaccompaniments that overcame him; that the stars overhead, the dark toweringtops of the yew-trees, and the wind that, like an unseen spirit, sighed throughtheir branches, bowed his spirit to the belief, that in all these ceremonieslay some great mystical meaning which, his humility told him, his ignoranceprevented him from understanding.

More convinced than before, that there was evil here, I could not endure thatmy master should be deceived; that one like him, so pure and noble, shouldrespect what, if my suspicions were true, was worse than the ordinarydeceptions of priestcraft. I could not tell how far he might be led tocountenance, and otherwise support their doings, before he should find cause torepent bitterly of his error. I watched the new procession yet more keenly, ifpossible, than the former. This time, the central figure was a girl; and, atthe close, I observed, yet more indubitably, the shrinking back, and thecrowding push. What happened to the victims, I never learned; but I had learnedenough, and I could bear it no longer. I stooped, and whispered to the younggirl who stood by me, to lend me her white garment. I wanted it, that I mightnot be entirely out of keeping with the solemnity, but might have at least thishelp to passing unquestioned. She looked up, half-amused and half-bewildered,as if doubting whether I was in earnest or not. But in her perplexity, shepermitted me to unfasten it, and slip it down from her shoulders.

I easily got possession of it; and, sinking down on my knees in the crowd, Irose apparently in the habit of one of the worshippers.

Giving my battle-axe to the girl, to hold in pledge for the return of herstole, for I wished to test the matter unarmed, and, if it was a man that satupon the throne, to attack him with hands bare, as I supposed his must be, Imade my way through the crowd to the front, while the singing yet continued,desirous of reaching the platform while it was unoccupied by any of thepriests. I was permitted to walk up the long avenue of white robes unmolested,though I saw questioning looks in many of the faces as I passed. I presume mycoolness aided my passage; for I felt quite indifferent as to my own fate; notfeeling, after the late events of my history, that I was at all worth takingcare of; and enjoying, perhaps, something of an evil satisfaction, in therevenge I was thus taking upon the self which had fooled me so long. When Iarrived on the platform, the song had just ceased, and I felt as if all werelooking towards me. But instead of kneeling at its foot, I walked right up thestairs to the throne, laid hold of a great wooden image that seemed to sit uponit, and tried to hurl it from its seat. In this I failed at first, for I foundit firmly fixed. But in dread lest, the first shock of amazement passing away,the guards would rush upon me before I had effected my purpose, I strained withall my might; and, with a noise as of the cracking, and breaking, and tearingof rotten wood, something gave way, and I hurled the image down the steps. Itsdisplacement revealed a great hole in the throne, like the hollow of a decayedtree, going down apparently a great way. But I had no time to examine it, for,as I looked into it, up out of it rushed a great brute, like a wolf, but twicethe size, and tumbled me headlong with itself, down the steps of the throne. Aswe fell, however, I caught it by the throat, and the moment we reached theplatform, a struggle commenced, in which I soon got uppermost, with my handupon its throat, and knee upon its heart. But now arose a wild cry of wrath andrevenge and rescue. A universal hiss of steel, as every sword was swept fromits scabbard, seemed to tear the very air in shreds. I heard the rush ofhundreds towards the platform on which I knelt. I only tightened my grasp ofthe brute’s throat. His eyes were already starting from his head, and histongue was hanging out. My anxious hope was, that, even after they had killedme, they would be unable to undo my gripe of his throat, before the monster waspast breathing. I therefore threw all my will, and force, and purpose, into thegrasping hand. I remember no blow. A faintness came over me, and myconsciousness departed.

CHAPTER XXIV

“We are ne’er like angels till our passions die.”
          DECKAR.

“This wretched Inn, where we scarce stay to bait,
        We call our Dwelling-Place:
        We call one Step a Race:
But angels in their full enlightened state,
Angels, who Live, and know what ‘tis to Be,
Who all the nonsense of our language see,
Who speak things, and our words, their ill-drawn pictures, scorn,
    When we, by a foolish figure, say,
    Behold an old man dead!then they
Speak properly, and cry, Behold a man-child born!”
          COWLEY.

I was dead, and right content. I lay in my coffin, with my hands folded inpeace. The knight, and the lady I loved, wept over me.

Her tears fell on my face.

“Ah!” said the knight, “I rushed amongst them like a madman.I hewed them down like brushwood. Their swords battered on me like hail, buthurt me not. I cut a lane through to my friend. He was dead. But he hadthrottled the monster, and I had to cut the handful out of its throat, before Icould disengage and carry off his body. They dared not molest me as I broughthim back.”

“He has died well,” said the lady.

My spirit rejoiced. They left me to my repose. I felt as if a cool hand hadbeen laid upon my heart, and had stilled it. My soul was like a summer evening,after a heavy fall of rain, when the drops are yet glistening on the trees inthe last rays of the down-going sun, and the wind of the twilight has begun toblow. The hot fever of life had gone by, and I breathed the clear mountain-airof the land of Death. I had never dreamed of such blessedness. It was not thatI had in any way ceased to be what I had been. The very fact that anything candie, implies the existence of something that cannot die; which must either taketo itself another form, as when the seed that is sown dies, and arises again;or, in conscious existence, may, perhaps, continue to lead a purely spirituallife. If my passions were dead, the souls of the passions, those essentialmysteries of the spirit which had imbodied themselves in the passions, and hadgiven to them all their glory and wonderment, yet lived, yet glowed, with apure, undying fire. They rose above their vanishing earthly garments, anddisclosed themselves angels of light. But oh, how beautiful beyond the oldform! I lay thus for a time, and lived as it were an unradiating existence; mysoul a motionless lake, that received all things and gave nothing back;satisfied in still contemplation, and spiritual consciousness.

Ere long, they bore me to my grave. Never tired child lay down in his whitebed, and heard the sound of his playthings being laid aside for the night, witha more luxurious satisfaction of repose than I knew, when I felt the coffinsettle on the firm earth, and heard the sound of the falling mould upon itslid. It has not the same hollow rattle within the coffin, that it sends up tothe edge of the grave. They buried me in no graveyard. They loved me too muchfor that, I thank them; but they laid me in the grounds of their own castle,amid many trees; where, as it was spring-time, were growing primroses, andblue-bells, and all the families of the woods

Now that I lay in her bosom, the whole earth, and each of her many births, wasas a body to me, at my will. I seemed to feel the great heart of the motherbeating into mine, and feeding me with her own life, her own essential beingand nature. I heard the footsteps of my friends above, and they sent a thrillthrough my heart. I knew that the helpers had gone, and that the knight and thelady remained, and spoke low, gentle, tearful words of him who lay beneath theyet wounded sod. I rose into a single large primrose that grew by the edge ofthe grave, and from the window of its humble, trusting face, looked full in thecountenance of the lady. I felt that I could manifest myself in the primrose;that it said a part of what I wanted to say; just as in the old time, I hadused to betake myself to a song for the same end. The flower caught her eye.She stooped and plucked it, saying, “Oh, you beautiful creature!”and, lightly kissing it, put it in her bosom. It was the first kiss she hadever given me. But the flower soon began to wither, and I forsook it.

It was evening. The sun was below the horizon; but his rosy beams yetilluminated a feathery cloud, that floated high above the world. I arose, Ireached the cloud; and, throwing myself upon it, floated with it in sight ofthe sinking sun. He sank, and the cloud grew gray; but the grayness touched notmy heart. It carried its rose-hue within; for now I could love without needingto be loved again. The moon came gliding up with all the past in her wan face.She changed my couch into a ghostly pallor, and threw all the earth below as tothe bottom of a pale sea of dreams. But she could not make me sad. I knew now,that it is by loving, and not by being loved, that one can come nearest thesoul of another; yea, that, where two love, it is the loving of each other, andnot the being loved by each other, that originates and perfects and assurestheir blessedness. I knew that love gives to him that loveth, power over anysoul beloved, even if that soul know him not, bringing him inwardly close tothat spirit; a power that cannot be but for good; for in proportion asselfishness intrudes, the love ceases, and the power which springs therefromdies. Yet all love will, one day, meet with its return. All true love will, oneday, behold its own image in the eyes of the beloved, and be humbly glad. Thisis possible in the realms of lofty Death. “Ah! my friends,” thoughtI, “how I will tend you, and wait upon you, and haunt you with mylove.”

My floating chariot bore me over a great city. Its faint dull sound steamed upinto the air—a sound—how composed? “How many hopelesscries,” thought I, “and how many mad shouts go to make up thetumult, here so faint where I float in eternal peace, knowing that they willone day be stilled in the surrounding calm, and that despair dies into infinitehope, and the seeming impossible there, is the law here!

“But, O pale-faced women, and gloomy-browed men, and forgotten children,how I will wait on you, and minister to you, and, putting my arms about you inthe dark, think hope into your hearts, when you fancy no one is near! Soon asmy senses have all come back, and have grown accustomed to this new blessedlife, I will be among you with the love that healeth.”

With this, a pang and a terrible shudder went through me; a writhing as ofdeath convulsed me; and I became once again conscious of a more limited, even abodily and earthly life.

CHAPTER XXV

“Our life is no dream; but it ought to become one, and perhapswill.”
          NOVALIS.

“And on the ground, which is my modres gate,
I knocke with my staf; erlich and late,
And say to hire, Leve mother, let me in.”
          CHAUCER, The Pardoneres Tale.

Sinking from such a state of ideal bliss, into the world of shadows which againclosed around and infolded me, my first dread was, not unnaturally, that my ownshadow had found me again, and that my torture had commenced anew. It was a sadrevulsion of feeling. This, indeed, seemed to correspond to what we think deathis, before we die. Yet I felt within me a power of calm endurance to which Ihad hitherto been a stranger. For, in truth, that I should be able if only tothink such things as I had been thinking, was an unspeakable delight. An hourof such peace made the turmoil of a lifetime worth striving through.

I found myself lying in the open air, in the early morning, before sunrise.Over me rose the summer heaven, expectant of the sun. The clouds already sawhim, coming from afar; and soon every dewdrop would rejoice in his individualpresence within it.

I lay motionless for a few minutes; and then slowly rose and looked about me. Iwas on the summit of a little hill; a valley lay beneath, and a range ofmountains closed up the view upon that side. But, to my horror, across thevalley, and up the height of the opposing mountains, stretched, from my veryfeet, a hugely expanding shade. There it lay, long and large, dark and mighty.I turned away with a sick despair; when lo! I beheld the sun just lifting hishead above the eastern hill, and the shadow that fell from me, lay only wherehis beams fell not. I danced for joy. It was only the natural shadow, that goeswith every man who walks in the sun. As he arose, higher and higher, theshadow-head sank down the side of the opposite hill, and crept in across thevalley towards my feet.

Now that I was so joyously delivered from this fear, I saw and recognised thecountry around me. In the valley below, lay my own castle, and the haunts of mychildhood were all about me hastened home. My sisters received me withunspeakable joy; but I suppose they observed some change in me, for a kind ofrespect, with a slight touch of awe in it, mingled with their joy, and made meashamed. They had been in great distress about me. On the morning of mydisappearance, they had found the floor of my room flooded; and, all that day,a wondrous and nearly impervious mist had hung about the castle and grounds. Ihad been gone, they told me, twenty-one days. To me it seemed twenty-one years.Nor could I yet feel quite secure in my new experiences. When, at night, I laydown once more in my own bed, I did not feel at all sure that when I awoke, Ishould not find myself in some mysterious region of Fairy Land. My dreams wereincessant and perturbed; but when I did awake, I saw clearly that I was in myown home.

My mind soon grew calm; and I began the duties of my new position, somewhatinstructed, I hoped, by the adventures that had befallen me in Fairy Land.Could I translate the experience of my travels there, into common life? Thiswas the question. Or must I live it all over again, and learn it all overagain, in the other forms that belong to the world of men, whose experience yetruns parallel to that of Fairy Land? These questions I cannot answer yet. But Ifear.

Even yet, I find myself looking round sometimes with anxiety, to see whether myshadow falls right away from the sun or no. I have never yet discovered anyinclination to either side. And if I am not unfrequently sad, I yet cast nomore of a shade on the earth, than most men who have lived in it as long as I.I have a strange feeling sometimes, that I am a ghost, sent into the world tominister to my fellow men, or, rather, to repair the wrongs I have alreadydone.

May the world be brighter for me, at least in those portions of it, where mydarkness falls not.

Thus I, who set out to find my Ideal, came back rejoicing that I had lost myShadow.

When the thought of the blessedness I experienced, after my death in FairyLand, is too high for me to lay hold upon it and hope in it, I often think ofthe wise woman in the cottage, and of her solemn assurance that she knewsomething too good to be told. When I am oppressed by any sorrow or realperplexity, I often feel as if I had only left her cottage for a time, andwould soon return out of the vision, into it again. Sometimes, on suchoccasions, I find myself, unconsciously almost, looking about for the mysticmark of red, with the vague hope of entering her door, and being comforted byher wise tenderness. I then console myself by saying: “I have comethrough the door of Dismay; and the way back from the world into which that hasled me, is through my tomb. Upon that the red sign lies, and I shall find itone day, and be glad.”

I will end my story with the relation of an incident which befell me a few daysago. I had been with my reapers, and, when they ceased their work at noon, Ihad lain down under the shadow of a great, ancient beech-tree, that stood onthe edge of the field. As I lay, with my eyes closed, I began to listen to thesound of the leaves overhead. At first, they made sweet inarticulate musicalone; but, by-and-by, the sound seemed to begin to take shape, and to begradually moulding itself into words; till, at last, I seemed able todistinguish these, half-dissolved in a little ocean of circumfluent tones:“A great good is coming—is coming—is coming to thee,Anodos;” and so over and over again. I fancied that the sound reminded meof the voice of the ancient woman, in the cottage that was four-square. Iopened my eyes, and, for a moment, almost believed that I saw her face, withits many wrinkles and its young eyes, looking at me from between two hoarybranches of the beech overhead. But when I looked more keenly, I saw only twigsand leaves, and the infinite sky, in tiny spots, gazing through between. Yet Iknow that good is coming to me—that good is always coming; though fewhave at all times the simplicity and the courage to believe it. What we callevil, is the only and best shape, which, for the person and his condition atthe time, could be assumed by the best good. And so, Farewell.

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