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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Phantastes, by George MacDonald
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Phantastes
+       A Faerie Romance for Men and Women
+
+Author: George MacDonald
+
+Release Date: September, 1995 [eBook #325]
+[Most recently updated: May 6, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: Mike Lough and David Widger
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHANTASTES ***
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+Phantastes
+A Faerie Romance for Men and Women
+
+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
+ PHANTASTES A FAERIE ROMANCE
+
+ CHAPTER I.
+ CHAPTER II.
+ CHAPTER III.
+ CHAPTER IV.
+ CHAPTER V.
+ CHAPTER VI.
+ CHAPTER VII.
+ CHAPTER VIII.
+ CHAPTER IX.
+ CHAPTER X.
+ CHAPTER XI.
+ CHAPTER XII.
+ CHAPTER XIII.
+ CHAPTER XIV.
+ CHAPTER XV.
+ CHAPTER XVI.
+ CHAPTER XVII.
+ CHAPTER XVIII.
+ CHAPTER XIX.
+ CHAPTER XX.
+ CHAPTER XXI.
+ CHAPTER XXII.
+ CHAPTER XXIII.
+ CHAPTER XXIV.
+ CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+For offering this new edition of my father’s Phantastes, my reasons are
+three. The first is to rescue the work from an edition illustrated
+without the author’s sanction, and so unsuitably that all lovers of the
+book must have experienced some real grief in turning its pages. With
+the copyright I secured 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
+personal gratitude for this, his first prose work, which was published
+nearly fifty years ago. Though unknown to many lovers of his greater
+writings, none of these has exceeded it in imaginative insight and
+power of expression. To me it rings with the dominant chord of his
+life’s purpose and work.
+
+My third reason is that wider knowledge and love of the book should be
+made possible. To this end I have been most happy in the help of my
+father’s old friend, who has illustrated the book. I know of no other
+living artist who is capable of portraying the spirit of Phantastes;
+and every reader of this edition will, I believe, feel that the
+illustrations are a part of the romance, and will gain through them
+some perception of the brotherhood between George MacDonald 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,
+wie Träume, denken; Gedichte, die bloss wohlklingend und voll schöner
+Worte sind, aber auch ohne allen Sinn und Zusammenhang, höchstens
+einzelne Strophen verständlich, wie Bruchstücke aus den
+verschiedenartigsten Dingen. Diese wahre Poesie kann höchstens einen
+allegorischen Sinn in Grossen, und eine indirecte Wirkung, wie Musik,
+haben. Darum ist die Natur so rein poetisch, wie die Stube eines
+Zauberers, eines Physikers, eine Kinderstube, eine Polter- und
+Vorrathskammer.
+
+Ein Märchen ist wie ein Traumbild ohne Zusammenhang. Ein Ensemble
+wunderbarer Dinge und Begebenheiten, z. B. eine musikalische Phantasie,
+die harmonischen Folgen einer Aeolsharfe, die Natur selbst...
+
+In einem echten Märchen muss alles wunderbar, geheimnissvoll und
+zusammenhängend sein; alles belebt, jeder auf eine andere Art. Die
+ganze Natur muss wunderlich mit der ganzen Geisterwelt gemischt sein;
+hier tritt die Zeit der Anarchie, der Gesetzlosigkeit, Freiheit, der
+Naturstand der Natur, die Zeit von der Welt ein . . . Die Welt des
+Märchens ist die, der Welt der Wahrheit durchaus entgegengesetzte, und
+eben darum ihr so durchaus ähnlich, wie das Chaos der vollendeten
+Schöpfung ähnlich ist.--NOVALIS.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+“A spirit  .  .  .
+.  .  .  .  .  .
+The undulating 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’S _Alastor_.
+
+
+I awoke one morning with the usual perplexity of mind which accompanies
+the return of consciousness. As I lay and looked through the eastern
+window of my room, a faint streak of peach-colour, dividing a cloud
+that just rose above the low swell of the horizon, announced the
+approach of the sun. As my thoughts, which a deep and apparently
+dreamless sleep had dissolved, began again to assume crystalline forms,
+the strange events of the foregoing night presented themselves anew to
+my wondering consciousness. The day before had been my
+one-and-twentieth birthday. Among other ceremonies investing me with my
+legal rights, the keys of an old secretary, in which my father had kept
+his private papers, had been delivered up to me. As soon as I was left
+alone, I ordered lights in the chamber where the secretary stood, the
+first lights that had been there for many a year; for, since my
+father’s death, the room had been left undisturbed. But, as if the
+darkness had been too long an inmate to be easily expelled, and had
+dyed with blackness the walls to which, bat-like, it had clung, these
+tapers served but ill to light up the gloomy hangings, and seemed to
+throw yet darker shadows into the hollows of the deep-wrought cornice.
+All the further portions of the room lay shrouded in a mystery whose
+deepest folds were gathered around the dark oak cabinet which I now
+approached with 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 human world, 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 had left him. Perhaps I
+was to find only the records of lands and moneys, how gotten and how
+secured; coming down from strange men, and through troublous times, 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
+were drawing near, I approached the secretary; and having found the key
+that fitted the upper portion, I opened it with some difficulty, drew
+near it a heavy high-backed chair, and sat down before a multitude of
+little drawers and slides and pigeon-holes. But the door of a little
+cupboard in the centre especially attracted 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 a number of small pigeon-holes. These, however, being but
+shallow compared with the depth of those around the little cupboard,
+the outer ones reaching to the back of the desk, I concluded that there
+must be some accessible space behind; and found, indeed, that they were
+formed in a separate framework, which admitted of the whole being
+pulled out in one piece. Behind, I found a sort of flexible portcullis
+of small bars of wood laid close together horizontally. After long
+search, and trying many ways to move it, I discovered at last a
+scarcely projecting point of steel on one side. I pressed this
+repeatedly and hard with the point of an old tool that was lying near,
+till at length it yielded inwards; and the little slide, flying up
+suddenly, disclosed a chamber—empty, except that in one corner lay a
+little heap of withered rose-leaves, whose long-lived scent had long
+since departed; and, in another, a small packet of papers, tied with a
+bit of ribbon, whose colour had gone with the rose-scent. Almost
+fearing to touch them, they witnessed so mutely to the law 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
+she had just emerged from its depth, a tiny woman-form, as perfect in
+shape as if she had been a small Greek statuette roused to life and
+motion. Her dress was of a kind that could never grow old-fashioned,
+because it was simply natural: a robe 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 of her dress, although
+my surprise was by no means of so overpowering a degree as such an
+apparition might naturally be expected to excite. Seeing, however, as I
+suppose, some astonishment in my countenance, she came forward within a
+yard of me, and said, in a voice that strangely recalled a sensation of
+twilight, and reedy 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 first
+time; and it is foolish enough to let mere repetition convince you of
+what you consider in itself unbelievable. I am not going to argue with
+you, however, but to 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 refuse anything?”
+
+“Is that all the philosophy you have gained in one-and-twenty years?”
+said she. “Form is much, but size is nothing. It is a mere matter of
+relation. I suppose your six-foot lordship does not feel altogether
+insignificant, 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 little consequence with old me, that I may as well accommodate
+myself to your foolish prejudices.”
+
+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 in its robe of white.
+
+“Now,” said she, “you will believe me.”
+
+Overcome with the presence of a beauty which I could now perceive, and
+drawn towards her by an attraction irresistible as incomprehensible, I
+suppose I stretched out my arms towards her, for she drew back a step
+or two, and said—
+
+“Foolish boy, if you could touch me, I should hurt you. Besides, I was
+two hundred and thirty-seven years old, last Midsummer eve; and a man
+must not fall 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 know something of
+your great-grandfathers a good deal further back than that; but you
+know very little about your great-grandmothers on either side. Now, to
+the point. 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 there a
+fairy-country, brother?’ You replied with a sigh, ‘I suppose there is,
+if one could find the way into it.’”
+
+“I did; but I meant something quite different from what you seem to
+think.”
+
+“Never mind what I seem to think. You shall find the way into Fairy
+Land to-morrow. Now look in my eyes.”
+
+Eagerly I did so. They filled me with an unknown longing. I remembered
+somehow that my mother died when I was a baby. I looked deeper and
+deeper, till they spread 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, and where I stood gazing on a whole
+heaven of stars, small and sparkling in the moonlight. Below lay a sea,
+still as death and hoary in the moon, sweeping into bays and around
+capes and islands, away, away, I knew not whither. Alas! it was no sea,
+but a low bog burnished by the moon. “Surely there is such a sea
+somewhere!” 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, and to bed.
+
+All this I recalled as I lay with half-closed eyes. I was soon to find
+the truth of the lady’s promise, that this day I should discover the
+road into Fairy Land.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+“‘Where is the stream?’ cried he, with tears. ‘Seest thou not its blue
+waves above us?’ He looked up, and lo! the blue stream was flowing
+gently over their heads.” —NOVALIS, _Heinrich von Ofterdingen_.
+
+
+While these strange events were passing through my mind, I suddenly, as
+one awakes to the consciousness that the sea has been moaning by him
+for hours, or that the storm has been howling about his window all
+night, became aware of the sound of running water near me; and, looking
+out of bed, I saw that a large green marble basin, in which I was wont
+to wash, and which stood on a low pedestal of the same material in a
+corner of my room, was overflowing like a spring; and that a stream of
+clear water was running over the carpet, all the length 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 and
+daisies, bordered the course of the little stream, the grass-blades and
+daisies seemed to wave in a tiny breeze that followed the water’s flow;
+while under the rivulet they bent and swayed with every motion of the
+changeful current, as if they were about to dissolve with it, and,
+forsaking their fixed form, become fluent as the waters.
+
+My dressing-table was an old-fashioned piece of furniture of black oak,
+with drawers all down the front. These were elaborately carved in
+foliage, of which ivy formed the chief part. The nearer end of this
+table remained just as it had been, but on the further end a singular
+change had commenced. I happened to fix my eye on a little cluster of
+ivy-leaves. The first of these was evidently the work 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 gilt handle
+of one of the drawers. Hearing next a slight motion above me, I looked
+up, and saw that the branches and leaves designed upon the curtains of
+my bed were slightly in motion. Not knowing what change might follow
+next, I thought it high time to get up; and, springing from the bed, my
+bare feet alighted upon a cool green sward; and although I dressed in
+all haste, I found myself completing my toilet under the boughs of a
+great tree, whose top waved in the golden stream of the sunrise with
+many interchanging lights, and with shadows of leaf and branch gliding
+over leaf and branch, as the cool morning wind swung it to and fro,
+like a sinking sea-wave.
+
+After washing as well as I could in the clear stream, I rose and looked
+around me. The tree under which I seemed to have lain all night was one
+of the advanced guard of a dense forest, towards which the rivulet ran.
+Faint traces of a footpath, much overgrown with grass and moss, and
+with here and there a pimpernel even, were discernible along the right
+bank. “This,” thought I, “must surely be the path into Fairy Land,
+which the lady of last night promised I should so soon find.” I crossed
+the rivulet, and accompanied it, keeping the footpath on its right
+bank, until it led me, as I expected, into the wood. Here I left it,
+without any good reason: and with a vague feeling that I ought to have
+followed its course, I took a more southerly direction.
+
+
+
+
+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.”
+          HENRY SUTTON.
+
+
+The trees, which were far apart where I entered, giving free passage to
+the level rays of the sun, closed rapidly as I advanced, so that ere
+long their crowded stems barred the sunlight out, forming as it were a
+thick grating between me and the East. I seemed to be advancing towards
+a second midnight. In the midst of the intervening twilight, however,
+before I entered what appeared to be the darkest portion of the forest,
+I saw a country maiden coming towards me from its very depths. She did
+not seem to observe me, for she was apparently intent upon a bunch of
+wild flowers which she carried in her hand. I could hardly see her
+face; for, though she came direct towards me, she never looked up. But
+when we met, instead of passing, she turned and walked alongside of me
+for 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 to herself, but evidently addressing the purport of her words
+to me.
+
+She seemed afraid of being observed by some lurking foe. “Trust the
+Oak,” 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 be
+changeable. But shun the Ash and the Alder; for the Ash is an ogre,—you
+will know him by his thick fingers; and the Alder will smother you with
+her web of hair, if you let her near you at night.” All this was
+uttered without pause or alteration of tone. Then she turned suddenly
+and left me, walking still with the same unchanging gait. I could not
+conjecture what she meant, but satisfied myself with thinking that it
+would be time enough to find out her meaning when there was need to
+make use of her warning, and that the occasion would 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 I was
+now walking; and I was right in this conclusion. For soon I came to a
+more open part, and by-and-by crossed a wide grassy glade, on which
+were several circles 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. Yet somehow the whole environment seemed only
+asleep, and to wear even in sleep an air of expectation. The trees
+seemed all to have an expression of conscious mystery, as if they said
+to themselves, “we could, an’ if we would.” They had all a meaning look
+about them. Then I remembered that night is the fairies’ day, and the
+moon their sun; and I thought—Everything sleeps and dreams now: when
+the night comes, it will be different. At the same time I, being a man
+and a child of the day, felt some anxiety as to how I should fare among
+the elves and other children of the night who wake when mortals dream,
+and find their common life in those wondrous hours that flow
+noiselessly over the moveless death-like forms of men and women and
+children, lying strewn and parted beneath the weight of the heavy waves
+of night, 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 the dark. 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 past had been feeling the want of food. So I
+grew afraid lest I should find nothing to meet my human necessities in
+this strange place; but once more I comforted myself with hope and went
+on.
+
+Before noon, I fancied I saw a thin blue smoke rising amongst the stems
+of larger trees in front of me; and soon I came to an open spot of
+ground in which stood a little cottage, so built that the stems of four
+great trees formed its corners, while their branches met and
+intertwined over its roof, heaping a great cloud of leaves over it, up
+towards the heavens. I wondered at finding a human 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,
+wide open. A woman sat beside it, preparing some vegetables for dinner.
+This was homely and comforting. As I came near, she looked up, and
+seeing me, showed no surprise, 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 the same 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 furnished with rough chairs and tables, from which even the
+bark had not been removed. As soon 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
+am trying to find out some trace of it in your countenance. I think I
+see it.”
+
+“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 of her eyebrows, a something unusual—I could hardly call it
+grace, and yet it was an expression that strangely contrasted with the
+form of her features. I noticed too that her hands were delicately
+formed, though brown with work and exposure.
+
+“I should be ill,” she continued, “if I did not live on the borders of
+the fairies’ country, and now and then eat of their food. And I see by
+your eyes that you are not quite free of the same need; though, from
+your education and the activity of your mind, you have felt it less
+than I. You may 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 for the 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 both of 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 the window was too small to allow anything to be seen from where I
+was sitting, I rose and looked over her shoulder. I had just time to
+see, across the open space, on the edge of the denser forest, a single
+large ash-tree, whose foliage showed bluish, amidst the truer green of
+the other trees around it; when she pushed me back with an expression
+of impatience and terror, and then almost shut out the light from the
+window by setting up a large old book in it.
+
+“In general,” said she, recovering her composure, “there is no danger
+in the daytime, for then he is sound asleep; but there is something
+unusual going on in the woods; there must be some solemnity among the
+fairies to-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 storm was 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 eyes
+and ears of the white rabbit are redder than usual, and he frisks about
+as if he expected some fun. If the cat were at home, she would have her
+back up; for the young fairies pull the sparks out of her tail with
+bramble thorns, and she knows 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 hole in the wall.
+
+“There, I told you!” said the woman.
+
+“But what of the ash-tree?” said I, returning once more to the subject.
+Here, however, the young woman, whom I had met in the morning, entered.
+A smile passed between the mother and daughter; and then the latter
+began to help her mother in little household duties.
+
+“I should like to stay here till the evening,” I said; “and then go on
+my journey, if you will allow me.”
+
+“You are welcome to do as you please; only it might be better to stay
+all night, 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 all that is to
+be seen, and therefore I should like to start just at sundown.”
+
+“You are a bold youth, if you have any idea of what you are daring; but
+a rash one, if you know nothing about it; and, excuse me, you do not
+seem very well informed about the country and its manners. However, no
+one comes here but for some reason, either known to himself or to those
+who have charge of him; so you shall do just as you wish.”
+
+Accordingly I sat down, and feeling rather tired, and disinclined for
+further talk, 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 towards the forest, and then drawing a white
+blind over the window. I sat down opposite to it by the table, on which
+I laid the great old volume, and read. It contained many wondrous tales
+of Fairy Land, and olden times, and the Knights of King Arthur’s table.
+I read on and on, till the shades of the afternoon began to deepen; for
+in the midst of the forest it gloomed earlier than in the open country.
+At length I came to this passage—
+
+“Here it chanced, that upon their quest, Sir Galahad and Sir Percivale
+rencountered in the depths of a great forest. Now, Sir Galahad was
+dight all in harness of silver, clear and shining; the which is a
+delight to look upon, but full hasty to tarnish, and withouten the
+labour of a ready squire, uneath to be kept fair and clean. And yet
+withouten squire or page, Sir Galahad’s armour shone like the moon. And
+he rode a great white mare, whose bases and other 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; whose trappings were
+all to-smirched with mud and mire; and his armour was wondrous rosty to
+behold, ne could he by any art furbish it again; so that as the sun in
+his going down shone twixt the bare trunks of the trees, full upon the
+knights twain, the one did seem all shining with light, and the other
+all to glow with ruddy fire. Now it came about in this wise. For Sir
+Percivale, after his escape from the demon lady, whenas the cross on
+the handle of his sword smote him to the heart, and he rove himself
+through the thigh, and escaped away, he came to a great wood; and, in
+nowise cured of his fault, yet bemoaning the same, the damosel of the
+alder tree encountered him, right fair to see; and with her fair words
+and false countenance she comforted him and beguiled him, until he
+followed her where she led him to a—-”
+
+Here a low hurried cry from my hostess caused me to look up from the
+book, and I 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 a cleft in the clouds piled up in the west; and a shadow as of
+a large distorted hand, with thick knobs and humps on the fingers, so
+that it was much wider across the fingers than across the undivided
+part of the hand, passed slowly over 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; for
+you do not know how soon something may happen to oblige us to be in the
+forest after nightfall.”
+
+“But you are in the forest,” said I; “how is it that you are safe
+here?”
+
+“He dares not come nearer than he is now,” she replied; “for any of
+those four oaks, at the corners of our cottage, would tear him to
+pieces; they are our friends. But he stands there and makes awful faces
+at us sometimes, and stretches out his long arms and fingers, and tries
+to kill us with fright; for, indeed, that is his favourite way of
+doing. Pray, keep out of his 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 there
+is in you. But we shall soon see whether you can discern the fairies in
+my little 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 you call
+fairies in your country are chiefly the young children of the flower
+fairies. They are very fond of having fun with the thick people, as
+they call you; 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,
+and mock 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, as soon as they have done, they burst into peals of
+tiny laughter, as if it was such a joke to have been serious over
+anything. These I speak of, however, are the fairies of the garden.
+They are more staid and educated than those of the fields 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 of
+life, and very little of manners. Now and then, however, they are
+compelled to envy the grace and simplicity of the natural flowers.”
+
+“Do they live _in_ the flowers?” I said.
+
+“I cannot tell,” she replied. “There is something in it I do not
+understand. Sometimes they disappear altogether, even from me, though I
+know they are near. They seem to die always with the flowers they
+resemble, and by whose names they are called; but whether they return
+to life with the fresh flowers, or, whether it be new flowers, new
+fairies, I cannot tell. They have as many sorts of dispositions as men
+and women, while their moods are yet more variable; twenty different
+expressions will cross their little faces in half a minute. I often
+amuse myself with watching them, but I have never been able to make
+personal acquaintance with any of them. If I speak to one, he or she
+looks up in my face, as if I were not worth heeding, gives a little
+laugh, and runs away.” Here the woman started, as if suddenly
+recollecting herself, and said 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 the
+observations I was afterwards able to make, was, that the flowers die
+because the 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 put on or off when they please. Just as you
+could form some idea of the nature of a man from the kind of house he
+built, if he followed his own taste, so you could, without seeing the
+fairies, tell what any one of them is like, by looking at the flower
+till you feel that you understand it. For just what the flower says to
+you, would the face and form of the fairy say; only so much more
+plainly as a face and human figure can express more than a flower. For
+the house or the clothes, though like the inhabitant or the wearer,
+cannot be wrought into an equal power of utterance. Yet you would see a
+strange resemblance, almost oneness, between the flower and the fairy,
+which you could not describe, but which described itself to you.
+Whether all the flowers have fairies, I cannot determine, any more than
+I can be sure whether all men and women have souls.
+
+The woman and I continued the conversation for a few minutes longer. I
+was much interested by the information she gave me, and astonished at
+the language in which she was able to convey it. It seemed that
+intercourse with the fairies was 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 my course seemed to lie eastward,
+she hoped I should be in no danger of meeting him if I departed at
+once. I looked out of the little window, and there stood the ash-tree,
+to my eyes the same as before; but I believed that they knew better
+than I did, and prepared to go. I pulled out my purse, but to my dismay
+there was nothing in it. The woman with a smile begged me not to
+trouble myself, for money was not of the slightest use there; and as I
+might meet with people in my journeys whom I could not recognise to be
+fairies, it was well I had no money to offer, for nothing offended them
+so much.
+
+“They would think,” she added, “that you were making game of them; and
+that is their peculiar privilege with regard to us.” So we went
+together into the little garden which sloped down towards a lower part
+of the wood.
+
+Here, to my great pleasure, all was life and bustle. There was still
+light enough from the day to see a little; and the pale half-moon,
+halfway to the zenith, was reviving every moment. The whole garden was
+like a carnival, with tiny, gaily decorated forms, in groups,
+assemblies, processions, pairs or trios, moving stately on, running
+about wildly, or sauntering hither or thither. From the cups or bells
+of tall flowers, as from balconies, some looked down on the masses
+below, now bursting with laughter, now grave as owls; but even in their
+deepest solemnity, seeming only to be waiting for the arrival of the
+next laugh. Some were launched on a little marshy stream at the bottom,
+in boats chosen from the heaps of last year’s leaves that lay about,
+curled and withered. These soon sank with them; whereupon they swam
+ashore and got others. 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 complained bitterly that they were stealing her clothes,
+and defended her property bravely.
+
+“You can’t wear half you’ve got,” said some.
+
+“Never you mind; I don’t choose you to have them: they are my
+property.”
+
+“All for the good of the community!” said one, and ran off with a great
+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 he ran, and recovered her great red leaf. But in the
+meantime twenty had hurried off in different directions with others
+just as good; and the little creature sat down and cried, and then, in
+a pet, sent a perfect pink snowstorm of petals from her tree, leaping
+from branch to branch, and stamping and shaking and pulling. 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 the cottage, 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 a funeral procession, two of them bearing poor
+Primrose, whose death Pocket had hastened by biting her stalk, upon one
+of her own great leaves. They bore her solemnly along some distance,
+and then buried her under a tree. Although I say _her_ I saw nothing
+but the withered primrose-flower on its long stalk. Pocket, who had
+been expelled from the company by common consent, went sulkily away
+towards her hammock, for she was the fairy of the calceolaria, and
+looked rather wicked. When she reached its stem, she stopped and looked
+round. I could not help speaking to her, for I stood near her. I said,
+“Pocket, how could 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 go away.”
+
+“Why did you bite poor Primrose?”
+
+“Because she said we should never see Snowdrop; as if we were not good
+enough to look at her, and she was, the proud thing!—served her right!”
+
+“Oh, Pocket, Pocket,” said I; but by this time the party which had gone
+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 and tail, or ran beside her; till, more coming to their help, the
+furious cat was held fast; and they proceeded to pick the sparks out of
+her with thorns and pins, which they handled like harpoons. Indeed,
+there were more instruments at work about her than there could have
+been sparks in her. One little fellow who held on hard by the tip of
+the tail, with his feet planted on the ground at an angle of forty-five
+degrees, helping to keep her fast, administered a continuous flow of
+admonitions to Pussy.
+
+“Now, Pussy, be patient. You know quite well it is all for your good.
+You cannot be comfortable with all those sparks in you; and, indeed, I
+am charitably disposed to believe” (here he became very pompous) “that
+they are the cause of all your bad temper; so we must have them all
+out, every one; 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, and dashed across the garden and through the hedge, faster than
+even the fairies could follow. “Never mind, never mind, we shall find
+her again; and by that time she will have laid in a fresh stock of
+sparks. Hooray!” And off they set, after some new mischief.
+
+But I will not linger to enlarge on the amusing display of these
+frolicsome creatures. Their manners and habits are now so well known to
+the world, having been so often described by eyewitnesses, that it
+would be only indulging self-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 desire that they should see the fairy
+of the daisy; a little, chubby, round-eyed child, with such innocent
+trust in his look! Even the most mischievous of the fairies 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 at
+everything, with his hands in his little pockets, and a white night-cap
+on, the darling! 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 warm thanks for their hospitality, I took my leave, and went my
+way through the little garden towards the forest. Some of the garden
+flowers had wandered into the wood, and were growing here and there
+along the path, but the trees soon became 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, set off by the
+universal green. It was now dark enough for me to see that every flower
+was shining with a light of its own. Indeed it was by this light that I
+saw them, an internal, peculiar light, proceeding from each, and not
+reflected from a common source of light as in the daytime. This light
+sufficed only for the plant itself, and was not strong enough to cast
+any but the faintest shadows around it, or to illuminate any of the
+neighbouring objects with other than the faintest tinge of its own
+individual hue. From the lilies above mentioned, from the campanulas,
+from the foxgloves, and every bell-shaped flower, curious little
+figures shot up their heads, peeped at me, and drew back. They seemed
+to inhabit them, as snails their shells; but I was sure some of them
+were intruders, and belonged to the gnomes or goblin-fairies, who
+inhabit 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, and spouted water at me, slipping suddenly back,
+like those little soldier-crabs that inhabit the shells of sea-snails.
+Passing a row of tall thistles, I saw them 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, evidently intending me
+to hear, but the speaker always hiding behind his tuft, when I looked
+in his direction, “Look at him! Look at him! He has begun a story
+without a beginning, and it will never have any end. He! he! he! Look
+at him!”
+
+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 wild hyacinths was alive with exquisite creatures, who stood nearly
+motionless, with drooping necks, holding each by the stem of her
+flower, and swaying gently with it, whenever a low breath of wind swung
+the crowded floral belfry. In like manner, though differing of course
+in form and meaning, stood a group of harebells, like little angels
+waiting, ready, till they were wanted to go on some yet unknown
+message. In darker nooks, by the mossy roots of the trees, or in 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 fairies
+everywhere; worms in the day, and glowworms at night, when their own
+can appear, and they can be themselves to others as well as themselves.
+But they had their enemies here. For I saw great strong-armed beetles,
+hurrying about with most unwieldy haste, awkward as elephant-calves,
+looking apparently for glowworms; for the moment a beetle espied one,
+through what to it was a forest of grass, or an underwood of moss, it
+pounced upon it, and bore it away, in spite of its feeble resistance.
+Wondering what their object could be, I watched one of the beetles, and
+then I discovered a thing I could not account for. But it is no use
+trying to account for things in Fairy Land; and one who travels there
+soon learns to forget the very idea of doing so, and takes everything
+as it comes; like a child, who, being in a chronic condition of wonder,
+is surprised at nothing. What I saw was this. Everywhere, here and
+there over the ground, lay little, dark-looking lumps of something more
+like earth than anything else, and about the size of a chestnut. The
+beetles hunted in couples for these; and having found one, one of them
+stayed to watch it, while the other hurried to find a glowworm. By
+signals, I presume, between them, the latter soon found his companion
+again: they then took the glowworm and held its luminous tail to the
+dark earthly pellet; when lo, it shot up into the air like a
+sky-rocket, seldom, however, reaching the height of the highest tree.
+Just like a rocket too, it burst in the air, and fell in a shower of
+the most gorgeously coloured sparks of every variety of hue; golden and
+red, and purple and 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, apparently uninjured by the use they
+had made of him.
+
+In other parts, the whole of the immediately surrounding foliage was
+illuminated by the interwoven dances in the air of splendidly coloured
+fire-flies, which sped hither and thither, turned, twisted, crossed,
+and recrossed, entwining every complexity of intervolved motion. Here
+and there, whole mighty trees glowed with an emitted phosphorescent
+light. You could trace the very course of the great roots in the earth
+by the faint light that came through; and every twig, and every vein on
+every leaf was a streak of pale fire.
+
+All this time, as I went through the wood, I was haunted with the
+feeling that other shapes, more like my own size and mien, were moving
+about at a little distance on all sides of me. But as yet I could
+discern none of them, although the moon was high enough to send a great
+many of her rays down between the trees, and these rays were unusually
+bright, and sight-giving, notwithstanding she was only a half-moon. I
+constantly imagined, however, that forms were visible in all directions
+except that to which my gaze was turned; and that they 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
+anything like human companionship, although my glance often fell on
+some object which I fancied to be a human form; for I soon found that I
+was quite deceived; as, the moment I fixed my regard on it, it showed
+plainly that it was a bush, or a tree, or a rock.
+
+Soon a vague sense of discomfort possessed me. With variations of
+relief, this gradually increased; as if some evil thing were wandering
+about in my neighbourhood, sometimes nearer and sometimes further off,
+but still approaching. The feeling continued and deepened, until all my
+pleasure in the shows of various kinds that everywhere betokened the
+presence of the merry fairies vanished by degrees, and left me full of
+anxiety and fear, which I was unable to associate with any definite
+object whatever. At length the thought crossed my mind with horror:
+“Can it be possible that the Ash is looking for me? or that, in his
+nightly wanderings, his path is gradually verging towards mine?” I
+comforted myself, however, by remembering that he had started quite in
+another direction; one that would lead him, if he kept it, far apart
+from me; especially as, for the last two or three hours, I had been
+diligently journeying eastward. I kept on my way, therefore, striving
+by direct effort of the will against the encroaching fear; and to this
+end occupying my mind, 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 almost overwhelmed 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 vaguest uncertainty as regarded
+the nature of my enemy, and knew not the mode or object of his attacks;
+for, somehow or other, none of my questions had succeeded in drawing a
+definite answer from the dame in the cottage. How then to defend myself
+I knew not; nor even by what sign I might with certainty recognise the
+presence of my foe; for as yet this vague though powerful fear was all
+the indication of danger I had. To add to my distress, the clouds in
+the west had risen nearly to the top of the skies, and they and the
+moon were travelling slowly towards each other. Indeed, some of their
+advanced guard had already met her, 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
+out again, with a brilliancy increased by the contrast, I saw plainly
+on the path before me—from around which at this spot the trees receded,
+leaving a small space of green sward—the shadow of a large hand, with
+knotty joints and protuberances here and there. Especially I remarked,
+even in the midst of my fear, the bulbous points of the fingers. I
+looked hurriedly all around, but could see nothing from which such a
+shadow should fall. Now, however, that I had a direction, however
+undetermined, in which to project my apprehension, the very sense of
+danger and need of action overcame that stifling which is the worst
+property of fear. I reflected in a moment, that if this were indeed a
+shadow, it was useless to look for the object that cast it in any other
+direction than between the shadow and the moon. I looked, and peered,
+and intensified my vision, all to no purpose. I could see nothing of
+that kind, not even 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 themselves close, like the claws of a wild animal, as
+if in uncontrollable longing for some anticipated prey. There seemed
+but one mode left of discovering the substance of this shadow. I went
+forward boldly, though with an inward shudder which I would not heed,
+to the spot where the shadow lay, threw myself on the ground, laid my
+head within the form of the hand, and turned my eyes towards the moon.
+Good heavens! what did I see? I wonder that ever I arose, and that the
+very shadow of the hand did not hold me where I lay until fear had
+frozen my brain. I saw the strangest figure; vague, shadowy, almost
+transparent, in the central parts, and gradually deepening in substance
+towards the outside, until it ended in extremities capable of casting
+such a shadow as fell from the hand, through the awful fingers of which
+I now saw the moon. The hand was uplifted in the attitude of a paw
+about to strike its prey. But the face, which throbbed with fluctuating
+and pulsatory visibility—not from changes in the light it reflected,
+but from changes in its own conditions of reflecting power, the
+alterations being from within, not from without—it was horrible. I do
+not know how to describe it. It caused a new sensation. Just as one
+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 only try to describe something that is not it, but
+seems somewhat parallel to it; or at 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 any life
+as the source of the motion. The features were rather handsome than
+otherwise, except the mouth, which had scarcely a curve in it. The lips
+were of equal thickness; but the thickness was not at all remarkable,
+even although they looked slightly swollen. They seemed fixedly open,
+but were not wide apart. Of course I did not _remark_ these lineaments
+at the time: I was too horrified for that. I noted them afterwards,
+when the form returned on my inward sight with a vividness too intense
+to admit of my doubting the accuracy of the reflex. But the most awful
+of the features were the eyes. These were alive, yet not with life.
+
+They seemed lighted up with an infinite greed. A gnawing voracity,
+which devoured the devourer, seemed to be the indwelling and propelling
+power of the whole ghostly apparition. I lay for a few moments simply
+imbruted with terror; when another cloud, obscuring the moon, delivered
+me from the immediately paralysing effects of the presence to the
+vision of the object of horror, while it added the force of imagination
+to the power of fear within me; inasmuch as, knowing far worse cause
+for apprehension than before, I remained equally ignorant from what I
+had to defend myself, or how to take any precautions: he might be upon
+me in the darkness any moment. I sprang to my feet, and sped I knew 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 flight of 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 the thick leaves could hold it up no longer; and, like a second
+firmament, they poured 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 vague hope that if I crossed this
+stream, I should be in safety from my pursuer; but I soon found that my
+hope was as false as it was vague. I dashed across the stream, ascended
+a rising ground, and reached a more open space, where stood only great
+trees. Through them I directed my way, holding eastward as nearly as I
+could guess, but not at all certain that I was not moving in an
+opposite direction. 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 faintly than before, from the extent of the source
+of the light, the shadow of the same horrible hand. I sprang forward,
+stung to yet wilder speed; but had not run many steps before my foot
+slipped, and, vainly attempting to recover myself, I fell 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
+feet of my face. But, at the same moment, I felt two large soft arms
+thrown round me from behind; and a voice like a woman’s said: “Do not
+fear the goblin; he dares not hurt you now.” With that, the hand was
+suddenly withdrawn 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 almost insensible. The first thing I remember is the sound of a
+voice above me, full and low, and strangely reminding me of the sound
+of a gentle wind amidst the leaves 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 I was seated on the ground, leaning
+against a human form, and supported still by the arms around me, which
+I knew to be those of a woman who must be rather above the human size,
+and largely proportioned. I turned my head, but without moving
+otherwise, for I feared lest the arms should untwine themselves; and
+clear, 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 and rainy shadow of the tree. The face seemed very
+lovely, and solemn from its stillness; with the aspect of one who is
+quite content, but waiting for something. I saw my conjecture from her
+arms was correct: she was above the human 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 know
+it?”
+
+“I am very glad you think so. I fancy I feel like a woman sometimes. I
+do so to-night—and always when the rain drips from my hair. For there
+is an old 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 a woman? 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 knew one 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 of
+winds and odours. There was a cool faithfulness in the kiss that
+revived my heart 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
+his tree. 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 horrid men
+they will make, if it be true!)—but this one has a hole in his heart
+that nobody knows of but one or two; and he is always trying to fill it
+up, but he cannot. That must be what he wanted you for. I wonder if he
+will ever be a man. 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 are
+some in the wood more like me, from whom, alas! I cannot protect you.
+Only if you 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
+strange cutting 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 wanted
+again in this wild forest. Perhaps it may never be of any use again—not
+till 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 and breathed deep, as one does when an acute pain,
+steadfastly endured without sign of suffering, is at length relaxed.
+She then took the hair and tied it round me, singing a strange, sweet
+song, which I could not understand, but which left in 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,
+and went on singing. The rain in the leaves, and a light wind that had
+arisen, kept her song company. I was wrapt in a trance of still
+delight. It told me the secret of the woods, and the flowers, and the
+birds. At one time I felt as if I was wandering in childhood through
+sunny spring forests, over carpets of primroses, anemones, and little
+white starry things—I had almost said creatures, and finding new
+wonderful flowers at every turn. At another, I lay half 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 leaves that had
+sheltered me, and received their last blessing in the sweet odours of
+decay; or, in a winter evening, frozen still, looked up, as I went home
+to a warm 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 nothing more that passed till I found myself lying under a
+superb beech-tree, in the clear light of the morning, just before
+sunrise. Around me was a girdle of fresh beech-leaves. Alas! I brought
+nothing with me out of Fairy Land, but memories—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 that swelled like
+undeveloped limbs. The leaves and branches above kept on the song which
+had sung me asleep; only now, to my mind, it sounded like a farewell
+and a speedwell. I sat a long time, unwilling to go; but my unfinished
+story urged me on. I must act and wander. With the sun well risen, I
+rose, and put my arms as far as they would reach around the beech-tree,
+and kissed it, and said good-bye. A trembling went through the leaves;
+a few of the last drops of the night’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 may love 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
+that damped my pleasure was a cloud of something between sorrow and
+delight that crossed my mind with the frequently returning thought of
+my last night’s hostess. “But then,” thought I, “if she is sorry, I
+could not help it; and she has all the pleasures she ever had. Such a
+day as this is surely a joy to her, as much at least as to me. And her
+life will perhaps be the richer, for holding now within it the memory
+of what came, but could not stay. And if ever she is a woman, who knows
+but we may meet somewhere? there is plenty of room for meeting in the
+universe.” Comforting myself thus, yet with a vague compunction, as if
+I ought not to have left her, I went on. There was little to
+distinguish the woods to-day from those of my own land; except that all
+the wild things, rabbits, birds, squirrels, mice, and the numberless
+other inhabitants, were very tame; that is, they did not run away from
+me, but gazed at me as I passed, frequently coming nearer, as if to
+examine me more closely. Whether this came from utter ignorance, or
+from familiarity with the human appearance of beings who never hurt
+them, I could not tell. As I stood once, looking up to the splendid
+flower of a parasite, which hung from the branch of a tree over my
+head, a large white rabbit cantered slowly up, put one of its little
+feet on one of mine, and looked up at me with its red eyes, just as I
+had been looking up at the flower above me. I stooped and stroked it;
+but when I attempted to lift it, it banged the ground with its hind
+feet and scampered off at a great rate, turning, however, to look at me
+several times before I lost sight of it. Now and then, too, a dim human
+figure would appear and 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 I
+had never seen before. I hesitated to eat them; but argued that, if I
+could live on the air of Fairy Land, I could live on its food also. I
+found my reasoning correct, and the result was better than I had hoped;
+for it not only satisfied my hunger, but operated in such a way upon my
+senses that I was brought into far more complete relationship with the
+things around me. The human forms appeared much more dense and defined;
+more tangibly visible, if I may say so. I seemed to know better which
+direction to choose when any doubt arose. 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 it were no
+unusual thing with me, to a conversation between two squirrels or
+monkeys. The subjects were not very interesting, except as associated
+with the individual life and necessities of the little creatures: where
+the best nuts were to be found in the neighbourhood, and who could
+crack them best, or who had most laid up for the winter, and such like;
+only they never said where the store was. There was no great difference
+in kind between their talk and our ordinary human conversation. Some of
+the creatures I never heard speak at all, and believe they never do so,
+except under the impulse of some great excitement. The mice talked; but
+the hedgehogs seemed very phlegmatic; and though I met a couple of
+moles above ground several times, they never said a word to each other
+in my hearing. There were no wild beasts in the forest; at least, 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 very steep; and having no trees—scarcely even a bush—upon it,
+entirely exposed to the heat of the sun. Over this my way seemed to
+lie, and I immediately began the ascent. On reaching the top, hot and
+weary, I looked around me, and saw that the forest still stretched as
+far as the sight could reach on every side of me. I observed that the
+trees, in the direction in which I was about to descend, did not come
+so near the foot of the hill as on the other side, and was especially
+regretting the unexpected postponement of shelter, because this side of
+the hill seemed more difficult to descend than the other had been to
+climb, when my eye caught the appearance of a natural path, 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
+the descent not at all laborious; nevertheless, when I reached the
+bottom, I was very 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 of them in full and splendid blossom: these
+almost concealed an opening in the rock, into which the path appeared
+to lead. I entered, thirsting for the shade which it promised. What was
+my delight to find a rocky cell, all the angles rounded away with rich
+moss, and every ledge and projection crowded with lovely ferns, the
+variety of whose forms, and groupings, and shades wrought in me like a
+poem; for such a harmony could not exist, except they all consented to
+some one end! A little well of the clearest water filled a mossy hollow
+in one corner. I drank, and felt as if I knew what the elixir of life
+must be; then threw myself on a mossy mound that lay like a couch along
+the inner end. Here I lay in a delicious reverie for some time; during
+which all lovely forms, and colours, and sounds seemed to use my brain
+as a common hall, where they could come and go, unbidden and unexcused.
+I had never imagined that such capacity for simple happiness lay in me,
+as was now awakened by this assembly of forms and spiritual sensations,
+which yet were far too vague to admit of being translated into any
+shape common to my own and another mind. I had lain for an hour, I
+should suppose, though it may have been far longer, when, the
+harmonious tumult in my mind having somewhat relaxed, I became aware
+that my eyes 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 awaited the quickening of his statue. The sculptor sat
+more rigid than the figure to which his eyes were turned. That seemed
+about to step from its pedestal and embrace the man, who waited rather
+than expected.
+
+“A lovely story,” I said to myself. “This cave, now, with the bushes
+cut away from the entrance to let the light in, might be such a place
+as he would choose, withdrawn from the notice of men, to set up his
+block of marble, and mould into a visible body the thought already
+clothed with form in the unseen hall of the sculptor’s brain. And,
+indeed, if I mistake not,” I said, starting up, as a sudden ray of
+light arrived at that moment through a crevice in the roof, and lighted
+up a small portion of the rock, bare of vegetation, “this very rock is
+marble, white enough and delicate enough for any statue, even if
+destined to become an ideal woman in the arms of the sculptor.”
+
+I took my knife and removed the moss from a part of the block on which
+I had been lying; when, to my surprise, I found it more like alabaster
+than ordinary marble, and soft to the edge of the knife. In fact, it
+was alabaster. By an inexplicable, though by no means unusual kind of
+impulse, I went on removing the moss from the surface of the stone; and
+soon saw that it was polished, or at least smooth, throughout. I
+continued my labour; and after clearing a space of about a couple of
+square feet, I observed what caused me to prosecute the work with more
+interest and care than before. For the ray of sunlight had now reached
+the spot I had cleared, and under its lustre the alabaster revealed its
+usual slight transparency when polished, except where my knife had
+scratched the surface; and I observed that the transparency seemed to
+have a definite limit, and to end upon an opaque body like the more
+solid, white marble. I was careful to scratch no more. And first, a
+vague anticipation gave way to a startling sense of possibility; then,
+as I proceeded, one revelation after another produced the entrancing
+conviction, that under the crust of alabaster lay a dimly visible form
+in marble, but whether of man or woman I could not yet tell. I worked
+on as rapidly as the necessary care would permit; and when I had
+uncovered 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 with sufficient plainness—though at the same time with
+considerable indistinctness, arising from the limited amount of light
+the place admitted, as well as from the nature of the object itself—a
+block of pure alabaster enclosing the form, apparently in marble, of a
+reposing woman. She lay on one side, with her hand under her cheek, and
+her face towards me; but her hair had fallen partly over her face, so
+that I could not see the expression of the whole. What I did see
+appeared to me perfectly lovely; more near the face that had been born
+with me in my soul, than anything I had seen before in nature or art.
+The actual outlines of the rest of the form were so indistinct, that
+the more than semi-opacity of the alabaster seemed insufficient to
+account for the fact; and I conjectured that a light robe added its
+obscurity. Numberless histories passed through my mind of change of
+substance from enchantment and other causes, and of imprisonments such
+as this before me. I thought of the Prince 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 other histories. Even my
+adventure of the preceding evening with the lady of the beech-tree
+contributed to arouse the wild hope, that by some means life might be
+given to this form also, and that, breaking from her alabaster tomb,
+she might 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, makes it
+capable of being moulded into any form? Then if she should awake! But
+how to awake her? A kiss awoke the Sleeping Beauty! a kiss cannot reach
+her through the incrusting alabaster.” I kneeled, however, and kissed
+the pale coffin; but she slept on. I bethought me of Orpheus, and the
+following stones—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 time displace the loveliness of rest? Sweet sounds
+can go where kisses may not enter. I sat and thought. Now, although
+always delighting in music, I had never been gifted with the power of
+song, until I entered the fairy forest. I had a voice, and I had a true
+sense of sound; but when I tried to sing, the one would not content the
+other, and so I remained silent. This morning, however, I had found
+myself, ere I was aware, rejoicing in a song; but whether it was before
+or after I had eaten of the fruits of the forest, I could not satisfy
+myself. I concluded it was after, however; and that the increased
+impulse to sing I now felt, was in part owing to having drunk of the
+little well, which shone like a brilliant 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 of the figure within, and sang—the words and
+tones coming together, and inseparably connected, as if word and tone
+formed one thing; or, as if each word could be uttered only in that
+tone, and was incapable of distinction from it, except in idea, by an
+acute analysis. I sang something like this: but the words are only a
+dull representation of a state whose very elevation precluded the
+possibility of remembrance; and in which I presume the words really
+employed were as far above these, as that state transcended this
+wherein I recall 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. I fancied, yet believed it to be but fancy, that through the dim
+veil of the alabaster, I saw a motion of the head as if caused by a
+sinking sigh. I gazed more earnestly, and concluded that it was but
+fancy. Neverthless I could not help 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 of penetrative sight, I would clear every lineament of the lovely
+face. And now I thought 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 position accurately. So I sang again; for the
+longing had grown into a passionate need of 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 and is gone, a white form, veiled in a light robe of whiteness,
+burst upwards from the stone, stood, glided forth, and gleamed away
+towards the woods. For I followed to the mouth of the cave, as soon as
+the amazement and concentration of delight permitted the nerves of
+motion again to act; and saw the white form amidst the trees, as it
+crossed a little glade on the edge of the forest where the sunlight
+fell full, seeming to gather with intenser radiance on the one object
+that floated rather than flitted through its lake of beams. I gazed
+after her in a kind of despair; found, freed, lost! It seemed useless
+to follow, yet follow I must. I marked the direction she took; and
+without once looking 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,
+a vision of another kind delayed my steps. Through an opening to the
+westward flowed, like a stream, the rays of the setting sun, and
+overflowed with a ruddy splendour the open space where I was. And
+riding as it were down this stream towards 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 the knight before; but
+as he drew near, I could recall no feature of his countenance. Ere he
+came up to me, however, I remembered the legend of Sir Percival in the
+rusty armour, which I had left unfinished in the old book in the
+cottage: it was of Sir Percival that he reminded me. And no wonder; for
+when he came close up to me, I saw that, from crest to heel, the whole
+surface of his armour was covered with a light rust. The golden spurs
+shone, but the iron greaves glowed in the sunlight. The _morning star_,
+which hung from his wrist, glittered and glowed with its silver and
+bronze. His whole appearance was terrible; but his face did not answer
+to this appearance. It was sad, even to gloominess; and something of
+shame seemed to cover it. Yet it was noble and high, though thus
+beclouded; and the form looked lofty, although the head drooped, and
+the whole frame was bowed as with an inward grief. The horse seemed to
+share in his master’s dejection, and walked spiritless and slow. I
+noticed, too, that the white plume on his helmet was discoloured and
+drooping. “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
+his body hath fallen.” He appeared not to observe me, for he was riding
+past without looking up, and started into a warlike attitude the moment
+the first sound of my voice reached him. Then a flush, as of shame,
+covered all of his face that the lifted beaver disclosed. He returned
+my greeting with distant courtesy, and passed on. But suddenly, he
+reined up, sat a moment still, and then turning his horse, rode back to
+where I stood looking after him.
+
+“I am ashamed,” he said, “to appear a knight, and in such a guise; but
+it behoves me to tell you to take warning from me, lest the same evil,
+in his kind, overtake the singer that has befallen the knight. Hast
+thou ever 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 of this
+forest, I found in a cottage the volume wherein it is recorded.”
+
+“Then take heed,” he rejoined; “for, see my armour—I put it off; and as
+it befell to him, so has it befallen to me. I that was proud am humble
+now. Yet is she terribly beautiful—beware. Never,” he added, raising
+his head, “shall this armour be furbished, but by the blows of knightly
+encounter, until the last speck has disappeared from every spot 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 once
+more, and make this armour shine.’”
+
+Before I could inquire further, he had struck spurs into his horse and
+galloped away, shrouded from my voice in the noise of his armour. For I
+called after him, anxious to know more about this fearful enchantress;
+but in vain—he heard me not. “Yet,” I said to myself, “I have now been
+often warned; surely I shall be well on my guard; and I am fully
+resolved I shall not be ensnared by any beauty, however beautiful.
+Doubtless, some one man may escape, and I shall be he.” So I went on
+into the wood, still hoping to find, in some one of its mysterious
+recesses, my lost lady of the marble. The sunny afternoon died into the
+loveliest twilight. Great bats began to flit about with their own
+noiseless flight, seemingly purposeless, because its objects are
+unseen. The monotonous music of the owl issued from all unexpected
+quarters in the half-darkness around me. The glow-worm was alight here
+and there, burning out into the great universe. The night-hawk
+heightened all the harmony and stillness with his oft-recurring,
+discordant jar. Numberless unknown sounds came out of the unknown dusk;
+but all were of twilight-kind, oppressing the heart as with a condensed
+atmosphere of dreamy undefined love and longing. The odours of night
+arose, and bathed me in that luxurious mournfulness peculiar to them,
+as if the plants whence they floated had been watered with bygone
+tears. Earth drew me towards her bosom; I felt as if I could fall down
+and kiss her. I forgot I was in Fairy Land, and seemed to be walking in
+a perfect night of our own old nursing earth. Great stems rose about
+me, uplifting a thick multitudinous roof above me of branches, and
+twigs, and leaves—the bird and insect world uplifted over mine, with
+its own landscapes, its own thickets, and paths, and glades, and
+dwellings; its own bird-ways and insect-delights. Great boughs crossed
+my path; great roots based the tree-columns, and mightily clasped the
+earth, strong to lift and strong to uphold. It seemed an old, old
+forest, perfect in forest ways and pleasures. And when, in the midst of
+this ecstacy, I remembered that under some close canopy of leaves, by
+some giant stem, or in some mossy cave, or beside some leafy well, sat
+the lady of the marble, whom my songs had called forth into the outer
+world, waiting (might it not be?) to meet and thank her deliverer in a
+twilight which 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, piercing through the pearly shroud of
+alabaster—“Why,” thought I, “should not my voice reach her now, through
+the ebon night that inwraps her.” My voice burst into song so
+spontaneously that it seemed involuntarily.
+
+“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, when I heard instead a low delicious laugh near me. It was not
+the laugh of one who would not be heard, but the laugh of one who has
+just received something long and patiently desired—a laugh that ends in
+a low musical moan. I started, and, turning sideways, saw a dim white
+figure seated beside an intertwining thicket of smaller trees and
+underwood.
+
+“It is my white lady!” I said, and flung myself on the ground beside
+her; striving, through the gathering darkness, to get a glimpse of the
+form which had broken its marble prison at my call.
+
+“It is your white lady!” said the sweetest voice, in reply, sending a
+thrill of speechless delight through a heart which all the love-charms
+of the preceding day and evening had been tempering for this
+culminating hour. Yet, if I would have confessed it, there was
+something either in the sound of the voice, although it seemed
+sweetness itself, or else in this yielding which awaited no gradation
+of gentle approaches, that did not vibrate harmoniously with 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, I
+found too plenteously, a cold shiver ran through me; but “it is the
+marble,” I said to myself, and heeded it not.
+
+She withdrew her hand from mine, and after that would scarce allow me
+to touch her. It seemed strange, after the fulness of her first
+greeting, that she could not trust me to come close to her. Though her
+words were those of a lover, she kept 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 did not 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 I could offer my hand to help her. She came close to my side,
+and conducted me through the wood. But once or twice, when,
+involuntarily almost, I was about to put my arm around her as we walked
+on through the warm gloom, she sprang away several paces, always
+keeping her face full towards me, and then stood looking at me,
+slightly stooping, in the attitude of one who fears some half-seen
+enemy. It was too dark to discern the expression of her face. Then she
+would return and walk close beside me again, as if nothing had
+happened. I thought this strange; but, besides that I had almost, as I
+said before, given up the attempt to account for appearances in Fairy
+Land, I judged that it would be very unfair to expect from one who had
+slept so long and had been so suddenly awakened, a behaviour
+correspondent to what I might unreflectingly look for. I knew not what
+she might have been dreaming about. Besides, it was possible that,
+while her words were free, her sense of touch might be exquisitely
+delicate.
+
+At length, after walking a long way in the woods, we arrived at another
+thicket, through the intertexture of which was glimmering a pale rosy
+light.
+
+“Push aside the branches,” she said, “and make room for us to enter.”
+
+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 the marble cave. It was festooned and draperied with all kinds
+of green that cling to shady rocks. In the furthest corner, half-hidden
+in leaves, through which it glowed, mingling lovely shadows between
+them, burned a bright rosy flame on a little earthen lamp. The lady
+glided round by the wall from behind me, still keeping her face towards
+me, and seated herself in the furthest corner, with her back to the
+lamp, which she hid completely from my view. I then saw indeed a form
+of perfect loveliness before me. Almost it seemed as if the light of
+the rose-lamp shone through her (for it could not be reflected from
+her); such a delicate shade of pink seemed to shadow what in itself
+must be a marbly whiteness of hue. I discovered afterwards, however,
+that there was one thing in it I did not like; which was, that the
+white part of the eye was tinged with the same slight roseate hue as
+the rest of the form. It is strange that I cannot 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 at her feet, and
+gazed up into her face as I lay. She began, and told me a strange tale,
+which, likewise, I cannot recollect; but which, at every turn and every
+pause, somehow or other fixed my eyes and thoughts upon her extreme
+beauty; seeming always to culminate in something that had a relation,
+revealed or hidden, but always operative, with her own loveliness. I
+lay entranced. It was a tale which brings back a feeling as of snows
+and tempests; torrents and water-sprites; lovers parted for long, and
+meeting at last; with a gorgeous summer night to close up the whole. I
+listened till she and I were blended with the tale; till she and I were
+the whole history. And we had met at last in this same 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 the
+only signs of an outer world that invaded our solitude. What followed I
+cannot clearly remember. The succeeding horror almost obliterated it. I
+woke as a grey dawn stole into the cave. The damsel had disappeared;
+but in the shrubbery, at the mouth of the cave, stood a strange
+horrible object. It looked like an open coffin set up on one end; only
+that the part for the head and neck was defined from the shoulder-part.
+In fact, it was a rough representation of the human frame, 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 by the elbow, as if the bark had healed again from the
+cut of a knife. But the arms moved, and the hand and the fingers were
+tearing asunder a long silky tress of hair. The thing turned round—it
+had for a face and front those of 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 fear invaded me. I put my
+hand to my waist, and found indeed that my girdle of beech-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 and
+derision; and then she said, as if to a companion with whom she had
+been talking while I slept, “There he is; you can take him now.” I lay
+still, 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 the Ash-tree. My beauty was the Maid of the Alder! and
+she was giving me, spoiled of my only availing defence, into the hands
+of my awful foe. The Ash bent his Gorgon-head, and entered the cave. I
+could not stir. He drew near me. His ghoul-eyes and his ghastly face
+fascinated me. He came stooping, with the hideous hand outstretched,
+like a beast of prey. I had given myself up to a death of unfathomable
+horror, when, suddenly, and just as he was on the point of seizing me,
+the dull, heavy blow of an axe echoed through the wood, followed by
+others in quick repetition. The Ash shuddered and groaned, withdrew the
+outstretched hand, retreated backwards to the mouth of the cave, then
+turned and disappeared amongst the trees. The other walking Death
+looked at me once, with a careless dislike on her beautifully moulded
+features; then, heedless any more to conceal her hollow deformity,
+turned her frightful back and likewise vanished amid the green
+obscurity without. I lay and wept. The Maid of the Alder-tree had
+befooled me—nearly slain me—in spite of all the warnings 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.”
+          BALLAD _of Sir Andrew Barton_.
+
+
+But I could not remain where I was any longer, though the daylight was
+hateful to me, and the thought of the great, innocent, bold sunrise
+unendurable. Here there was no well to cool my face, smarting with the
+bitterness of my own tears. Nor would I have washed in the well of that
+grotto, had it flowed clear as the rivers of Paradise. I rose, and
+feebly left the sepulchral cave. I took my way I knew not whither, but
+still towards the sunrise. The birds were singing; but not for me. All
+the creatures spoke a language of their own, with which 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
+own folly—was the perplexing question, How can beauty and ugliness
+dwell so near? Even with her altered complexion and her face of
+dislike; disenchanted of the belief that clung around her; known for a
+living, walking sepulchre, faithless, deluding, traitorous; I felt
+notwithstanding all this, that she was beautiful. Upon this I pondered
+with undiminished perplexity, though not without some gain. Then I
+began to make surmises as to the mode of my deliverance; and concluded
+that some hero, wandering in search of adventure, had heard how the
+forest was infested; and, knowing it was useless to attack the evil
+thing in person, had assailed with his battle-axe the body in which he
+dwelt, and on which he was dependent for his power of mischief in the
+wood. “Very likely,” I thought, “the repentant-knight, who warned me 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
+the dangerous and mysterious being, arrived at his tree in time to save
+me from being dragged to its roots, and buried like carrion, to nourish
+him for yet deeper insatiableness.” I found afterwards that my
+conjecture was correct. 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 I could not have eaten, had any been offered me; till, in the
+afternoon, I seemed to 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 once more, and I hastened up to the
+door, and knocked. A kind-looking, matronly woman, still handsome, made
+her appearance; who, as soon as she saw me, said kindly, “Ah, my poor
+boy, you have come from the wood! Were you in it last night?”
+
+I should have ill endured, the day before, to be called _boy_; but now
+the motherly kindness of the word went to my heart; and, like a boy
+indeed, I burst into tears. She soothed me right gently; and, leading
+me into a room, made me lie down on a settle, while she went to find me
+some refreshment. She soon returned with food, but I could not eat. She
+almost compelled me to swallow some wine, when I revived sufficiently
+to be able to answer some of her questions. I told her the whole story.
+
+“It is just as I feared,” she said; “but you are now for the night
+beyond the reach of any of these dreadful creatures. It is no wonder
+they could 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 for believing anything of the sort. But I must believe my
+senses, as he cannot believe beyond his, which give him no intimations
+of this kind. I think he could spend the whole of Midsummer-eve in the
+wood and come back with the report that he saw nothing worse than
+himself. Indeed, good man, he would hardly find anything better than
+himself, if he had seven more senses given him.”
+
+“But tell me how it is that she could be so beautiful without any heart
+at all—without any place even for a heart to live in.”
+
+“I cannot quite tell,” she said; “but I am sure she would not look so
+beautiful if she did not take means to make herself look more beautiful
+than she is. And then, you know, you began by being in love with her
+before you saw her beauty, mistaking her for the lady of the
+marble—another kind altogether, I should think. But the chief thing
+that makes her beautiful is this: that, although she loves no man, she
+loves the love of any man; and when she finds one in her power, her
+desire to bewitch him and gain his love (not for the sake of his love
+either, but that she may be conscious anew of her own beauty, through
+the admiration he manifests), makes her very lovely—with a
+self-destructive beauty, though; for it is that which is constantly
+wearing her away within, till, at last, the decay will reach her face,
+and her whole front, when all the lovely mask of nothing will fall to
+pieces, and she be vanished for ever. So a wise man, whom she met in
+the wood some years ago, and who, I think, for all his wisdom, fared no
+better than you, told me, when, like you, 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 woman I met on my first entering the
+forest, there should be such superiority to her apparent condition.
+Here she left me to take some rest; though, indeed, I was too much
+agitated to rest in any other way than by simply ceasing to move.
+
+In half an hour, I heard a heavy step approach and enter the house. A
+jolly voice, whose slight huskiness appeared to proceed from overmuch
+laughter, called out “Betsy, the pigs’ trough is quite empty, and that
+is a pity. 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 very voice, kind and jovial, seemed to disrobe the room of the
+strange look which all new places wear—to disenchant it out of the
+realm of the ideal into that of the actual. It began to look as if I
+had known every corner of it for twenty years; and when, soon after,
+the dame came and fetched me to partake of their early supper, the
+grasp of his great hand, and the harvest-moon of his benevolent face,
+which was needed to light up the rotundity of the globe beneath it,
+produced such a reaction in me, that, for a moment, I could hardly
+believe that there was a Fairy Land; and that all I had passed through
+since I left home, had not been the wandering dream of a diseased
+imagination, operating on a too mobile frame, not merely causing me
+indeed to travel, but peopling for me with vague phantoms the regions
+through which my actual steps had led me. But the next moment my eye
+fell upon a little girl who was sitting in the chimney-corner, with a
+little book open on her knee, from which she had apparently just looked
+up to fix great inquiring eyes upon me. I believed in Fairy Land again.
+She went on with her reading, as soon as she saw that I observed her
+looking at me. I went near, and peeping over her shoulder, saw that she
+was reading _The History of Graciosa and Percinet_.
+
+“Very improving book, sir,” remarked the old farmer, with a
+good-humoured laugh. “We are in the very hottest corner of Fairy Land
+here. Ha! ha! Stormy night, last night, sir.”
+
+“Was it, indeed?” I rejoined. “It was not so with me. A lovelier 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, that
+there is nothing very remarkable about the forest; for, to tell the
+truth, it bears but a bad name in these parts. I dare say you saw
+nothing worse than yourself there?”
+
+“I hope I did,” was my inward reply; but, for an audible one, I
+contented myself with saying, “Why, I certainly did see some
+appearances I could hardly account for; but that is nothing to be
+wondered at in an unknown wild 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
+sensible folks round about us. Now, you would hardly credit it, but my
+wife believes every fairy-tale that ever was written. I cannot account
+for it. She is a most sensible 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 every
+day in the midst of absurdity, it is far less easy to behave
+respectfully to it. 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 especially
+well.”
+
+“But, father,” interposed the little girl in the chimney-corner, “you
+know quite well that mother is descended from that very princess who
+was changed by the wicked fairy into a white cat. Mother has told me so
+a many times, and you ought to believe everything she says.”
+
+“I can easily believe that,” rejoined the farmer, with another fit of
+laughter; “for, the other night, a mouse came gnawing and scratching
+beneath the floor, and would not let us go to sleep. Your mother sprang
+out of bed, 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,
+joined in his father’s laugh; but his laugh was very different from the
+old man’s: it was polluted with a sneer. I watched him, and saw that,
+as soon as it was over, he looked scared, as if he dreaded some evil
+consequences to follow his presumption. The woman stood near, waiting
+till we should seat ourselves at the table, and listening to it all
+with an amused air, which had something in it of the look with which
+one listens to the sententious remarks of a pompous child. We sat down
+to supper, and I ate heartily. My bygone distresses 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 definite answer.
+“Does the forest extend much further in that direction?”
+
+“Oh! for miles and miles; I do not know how far. For although I have
+lived on the borders of it all my life, I have been too busy to make
+journeys of discovery into it. Nor do I see what I could discover. It
+is only trees and trees, till one is sick of them. By the way, if you
+follow the eastward track from here, you will pass close to what the
+children say is the very house of the ogre that Hop-o’-my-Thumb
+visited, and ate his little daughters with the crowns of gold.”
+
+“Oh, father! ate his little daughters! No; he only changed their gold
+crowns 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 little ogresses.”
+
+“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, a bad enough name; and I must confess there is a woman living
+in it, with teeth long enough, and white enough too, for the lineal
+descendant of the greatest ogre 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
+lasted some time, my hostess conducted me to my chamber.
+
+“If you had not had enough of it already,” she said, “I would have put
+you in another room, which looks towards the forest; and where you
+would most likely have seen something more of its inhabitants. For they
+frequently pass the window, and even enter the room sometimes. Strange
+creatures spend whole nights in it, at certain seasons of the year. I
+am used to it, and do not mind it. No more does my little girl, who
+sleeps in it always. But this room looks southward towards the open
+country, and they never show themselves here; at least I never saw
+any.”
+
+I was somewhat sorry not to gather any experience that I might have, of
+the inhabitants of Fairy Land; but the effect of the farmer’s company,
+and of my own later adventures, was such, that I chose rather an
+undisturbed night in my 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 sun was 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 their busiest; the cows in a near-by field
+were eating as if they had not been at it all day yesterday; the maids
+were singing at their work as they passed to and fro between the
+out-houses: I did not believe in Fairy Land. I went down, and found the
+family already at breakfast. But before I entered the room where they
+sat, the little girl came to me, and looked up in my face, as though
+she wanted to 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 entered
+together. “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 the mother and daughter.
+
+“When I looked out of the window this morning,” I said, “I felt almost
+certain that Fairy Land was all a delusion of my brain; but whenever I
+come near you or your little daughter, I feel differently. Yet I could
+persuade myself, after my last adventures, to go back, and have nothing
+more 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
+no way of going back. They must go on, and go through it. How, I do not
+in the least know.”
+
+“That is quite the impression on my own mind. Something compels me to
+go on, as if my only path was onward, but I feel less inclined this
+morning to continue my adventures.”
+
+“Will you come and see my little child’s room? She sleeps in the one 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. It was a large room, full of old-fashioned furniture, that
+seemed to have once belonged to some great house.
+
+The window was built with a low arch, and filled with lozenge-shaped
+panes. The wall was very thick, and built of solid stone. I could see
+that part of the house had been erected against the remains of some old
+castle or abbey, or other great building; the fallen stones of which
+had probably served to complete it. But as soon as I looked out of the
+window, a gush of wonderment and longing flowed over my soul like the
+tide of a great sea. Fairy Land lay before me, and drew me towards it
+with an irresistible attraction. The trees bathed their great heads in
+the waves of the morning, while their roots were planted deep in gloom;
+save where on the borders the sunshine broke against their stems, or
+swept in long streams through their avenues, washing with brighter hue
+all the leaves over which it flowed; revealing the rich brown of the
+decayed leaves and fallen pine-cones, and the delicate greens of the
+long grasses and tiny forests of moss that covered the channel over
+which it passed in motionless rivers of light. I turned hurriedly to
+bid my hostess farewell without 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 will
+show you into another path, which will join the first beyond it.”
+
+Not wishing to be headstrong or too confident any more, I agreed; and
+having taken leave of my kind entertainers, went into the wood,
+accompanied by the youth. He scarcely spoke as we went along; but he
+led me through the trees till we 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 my former elasticity of mind. I found cheerfulness to be like
+life itself—not to be created by any argument. Afterwards I learned,
+that the best way to manage some kinds of pain filled thoughts, is to
+dare them to do their worst; to let them lie and gnaw at your heart
+till they are tired; and you find you still have a residue of life they
+cannot kill. So, better and worse, I went on, till I came to a little
+clearing in the forest. In the middle of this clearing stood a long,
+low hut, built with one end against a single tall cypress, which rose
+like a spire to the building. A vague misgiving crossed my mind when I
+saw it; but I must needs go closer, and look through a little half-open
+door, near the opposite end from the cypress. Window I saw none. 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
+if reading by its light. I could see nothing more for a few moments. At
+length, as my eyes got used to the dimness of the place, I saw that the
+part of the rude building near me was used for household purposes; for
+several rough utensils lay 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 stepped within the threshold, she began to read aloud, in a
+low and not altogether unpleasing voice, from an ancient little volume
+which she held open with one hand on the table upon which stood the
+lamp. What she read was something like this:
+
+“So, then, as darkness had no beginning, neither will it ever have an
+end. 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 but hollow a mine out of the infinite extension of the
+darkness. And ever upon the steps of the light treadeth the darkness;
+yea, springeth in fountains and wells amidst it, from the secret
+channels of its mighty sea. Truly, man is but a passing flame, moving
+unquietly amid the surrounding rest of night; without which 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
+the dark 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 no notice of me. This end of the cottage, if
+cottage it could be called, was destitute of furniture, except the
+table with the lamp, and the chair on which the 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 had
+made me enter the building urged me: I must open that door, and see
+what was beyond it. I approached, and laid my hand on the rude latch.
+Then the woman spoke, but without lifting her head or looking at me:
+“You had better not open that door.” This was uttered quite quietly;
+and she went on with her reading, partly in silence, partly aloud; but
+both modes seemed equally intended for herself alone. The prohibition,
+however, only increased my desire to see; and as she took no further
+notice, I gently opened the door to its full width, and looked in. At
+first, I saw nothing worthy of attention. It seemed a common closet,
+with shelves on each hand, on which stood various little necessaries
+for the humble uses of a cottage. In one corner stood one or two
+brooms, in another a hatchet and other common tools; showing that it
+was in use every hour of the day for household purposes. But, as I
+looked, I saw that there were no shelves at the back, and that an empty
+space went in further; its termination appearing to be a faintly
+glimmering wall or curtain, somewhat less, however, than the width and
+height of the doorway where I stood. But, as I continued looking, for a
+few seconds, towards this faintly luminous limit, my eyes came into
+true relation with their object. All at once, with such a shiver as
+when one is suddenly conscious of the presence of another in a room
+where he has, for hours, considered himself alone, I saw that the
+seemingly luminous extremity was a sky, as of night, beheld through the
+long perspective of a narrow, dark passage, through what, or built of
+what, I could not tell. As I gazed, I clearly discerned two or three
+stars glimmering faintly in the distant blue. But, suddenly, and as if
+it had been running fast from a far distance for this very point, and
+had turned the corner without abating its swiftness, a dark figure sped
+into and along the passage from the blue opening at the remote end. 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 of myself, rushed up to me, and passed me into the cottage.
+All I could tell of its appearance was, that it seemed to be a dark
+human figure. Its motion was entirely noiseless, and might be called a
+gliding, were it not that it appeared that of a runner, but with
+ghostly feet. I had moved back yet a little to let him 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 sat
+reading.
+
+“There, on the floor, behind you,” she said, pointing with her arm
+half-outstretched, but not lifting her eyes. I turned and looked, but
+saw nothing. Then with a feeling that there was yet something behind
+me, I looked round over my shoulder; and there, on the ground, lay a
+black shadow, the size of 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 of its hue.
+
+“I told you,” said the woman, “you had better not look into that
+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. I believe you call it by
+a different name in your world: yours has found you, as every person’s
+is almost certain to do who looks into that closet, especially after
+meeting one in the forest, whom I dare say you have met.”
+
+Here, for the first time, she lifted her head, and looked full at me:
+her mouth was full of long, white, shining teeth; and I knew that I was
+in the house of the ogre. I could not speak, but turned and left the
+house, with the shadow at my heels. “A nice sort of valet to have,” I
+said to myself bitterly, as I stepped into the sunshine, and, looking
+over my shoulder, saw that it lay yet blacker in the full blaze of the
+sunlight. Indeed, only when I stood between it and the sun, was the
+blackness at all diminished. I was so bewildered—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 a constant and strange attendance;
+but with a dim conviction that my present dislike 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 no consecutive account of my wanderings and adventures.
+Everything, henceforward, existed for me in its relation to my
+attendant. What influence he exercised upon everything into contact
+with which I was brought, may be understood from a few detached
+instances. To begin with this very day on which he first joined me:
+after I had walked heartlessly along for two or three hours, I was very
+weary, and lay down to rest in a most delightful part of the forest,
+carpeted with wild flowers. I lay for half an hour in a dull repose,
+and then got up to pursue my way. The flowers on the spot where I had
+lain were crushed to the earth: but I saw that they would soon lift
+their heads and rejoice again in the sun and air. Not so those on which
+my shadow had lain. The very outline of it could be traced in the
+withered lifeless grass, and the scorched and shrivelled flowers 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
+influences from the fact, that it was no longer confined to one
+position in regard to myself. Hitherto, when seized with an
+irresistible desire to look on my evil demon (which longing would
+unaccountably seize me at any moment, returning at longer or shorter
+intervals, sometimes every minute), I had to turn my head backwards,
+and look over my shoulder; in which position, as long as I could retain
+it, I was fascinated. But one day, having come out on a clear grassy
+hill, which commanded a glorious prospect, though of what I cannot now
+tell, my shadow moved round, and came in front of me. And, presently, a
+new manifestation increased my distress. For it began to coruscate, and
+shoot out on all sides a radiation of dim shadow. These rays of gloom
+issued from the central shadow as from a black sun, lengthening and
+shortening with continual change. But wherever a ray struck, that part
+of earth, or sea, or sky, became void, and desert, and sad to my heart.
+On this, the first development of its new 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 beneath the blow. I
+turned away and went on. The shadow retreated to its former position;
+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 two wondrous toys, one in each hand. The one was the tube through
+which the fairy-gifted poet looks when he beholds the same thing
+everywhere; the other that through which he looks when he combines into
+new forms of loveliness those images of beauty which his own choice has
+gathered from all regions wherein he has 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 the something dark, and the child
+stood in my shadow. Straightway he was a commonplace boy, with a rough
+broad-brimmed straw hat, through which brim the sun shone from behind.
+The toys he carried were a multiplying-glass and a kaleidoscope. I
+sighed and departed.
+
+One evening, as a great silent flood of western gold flowed through an
+avenue in the woods, down the stream, just as when I saw him first,
+came the sad knight, 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, and the glorious steel had answered the kindly blow with
+the thanks of returning light. These streaks and spots made his armour
+look like the floor of a forest in the sunlight. His forehead was
+higher than before, for the contracting wrinkles were nearly gone; and
+the sadness that remained on his face was the sadness 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 mighty deeds,
+and the stain was nearly washed away. No shadow followed him. He had
+not entered the dark house; he had not had time to open the closet
+door. “Will he ever look in?” I said to myself. “_Must_ his shadow 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 that he suspected my story in some degree; and I saw him once or
+twice looking curiously and anxiously at my attendant gloom, which all
+this time had remained very 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 even alluding 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 point of falling on his
+neck, and telling him the whole story; seeking, if not for helpful
+advice, for of that I was hopeless, yet for the comfort of
+sympathy—when round slid the shadow and inwrapt my friend; and I could
+not trust him.
+
+The glory of his brow vanished; the light of his eye grew cold; and I
+held my peace. The next morning we parted.
+
+But the most dreadful thing of all was, that I now began to feel
+something like satisfaction in the presence of the shadow. I began to
+be rather vain of my attendant, saying to myself, “In a land like this,
+with so many illusions everywhere, I need his aid to disenchant the
+things around me. He does away with all appearances, and shows me
+things in their true colour and form. And I am not one to be fooled
+with the vanities of the common crowd. I will not see beauty where
+there is none. I will dare to behold things as they are. And if I live
+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 was thus:
+
+One bright noon, a little maiden joined me, coming through the wood in
+a direction at right angles to my path. She came along singing and
+dancing, happy as 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 purest crystal. This seemed at once her plaything and her
+greatest treasure. At one moment, 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 of it all the time, perhaps
+not least when least occupied about it. She stopped by me with a smile,
+and bade me good day with the sweetest voice. I felt a wonderful liking
+to the child—for she produced on me more the impression of 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
+her about the globe she carried, but getting no definite answer, I held
+out my hand to take it. She drew back, and said, but smiling almost
+invitingly the while, “You must not touch it;”—then, after a moment’s
+pause—“Or if you do, it must be very gently.” I touched it with a
+finger. A slight vibratory motion arose in it, accompanied, or perhaps
+manifested, by a faint sweet sound. I touched it again, and the sound
+increased. I touched it the third time: a tiny torrent of harmony
+rolled out of the 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; but next 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, and the life she had led hitherto, I had
+never been able to learn anything about the globe. This day, however,
+as we went on, the shadow glided round and inwrapt the maiden. It could
+not change her. But my desire to know about the globe, which in his
+gloom began to waver as with an inward light, and to shoot out flashes
+of many-coloured flame, grew irresistible. I put out both my hands and
+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 the maiden, though I held it in spite of her
+attempts to take it from me; yes, I shame to say, in spite of her
+prayers, and, at last, her tears. The music went on growing in,
+intensity and complication of tones, and the globe vibrated and heaved;
+till at last it burst in our hands, and a black vapour broke upwards
+from 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 I abandoned, and fled from me into the forest in the
+direction whence she had come, wailing like a child, and crying, “You
+have broken my globe; my globe is broken—my globe is broken!” I
+followed her, in the hope of comforting her; but had not pursued her
+far, before a sudden cold gust of wind bowed the tree-tops above us,
+and swept through their stems around us; a great cloud overspread the
+day, and a fierce tempest came on, in which I lost sight of 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 was owing 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 the dwellers in our land. They rather
+avoided than sought my company, though they were very pleasant when I
+addressed them. But at last I observed, that whenever I came within a
+certain distance of any one of them, which distance, however, varied
+with different individuals, the whole appearance of the person began to
+change; and this change increased in degree as I approached. When I
+receded to the former distance, the former appearance was restored. The
+nature of the change was grotesque, following no fixed rule. The
+nearest resemblance to it that I know, is the distortion produced in
+your countenance when you look at it as reflected in a concave or
+convex surface—say, either side of a bright spoon. Of this phenomenon I
+first became aware in rather a ludicrous way. My host’s daughter was a
+very pleasant pretty girl, who made herself more agreeable to me than
+most of those about me. For some days my companion-shadow had been less
+obtrusive than usual; and such was the reaction of spirits occasioned
+by the simple mitigation of torment, that, although I had cause enough
+besides to be gloomy, I felt light and comparatively happy. My
+impression is, that she was quite aware of the law of appearances that
+existed between the people of the place and myself, and had resolved to
+amuse herself at my expense; for one evening, after some jesting and
+raillery, she, somehow or other, provoked me to attempt to kiss her.
+But she was well defended from any assault of the kind. Her countenance
+became, of a sudden, absurdly hideous; the pretty mouth was elongated
+and otherwise amplified sufficiently to have allowed of six
+simultaneous kisses. I started back in bewildered dismay; she burst
+into the merriest fit of laughter, and ran from the room. I soon found
+that the same undefinable law of change operated between me and all the
+other villagers; and that, to feel I was in pleasant company, it was
+absolutely necessary for me to discover and observe the right focal
+distance between myself and each one with whom I had to do. This done,
+all went pleasantly enough. Whether, when I happened to neglect this
+precaution, I presented to them an equally ridiculous appearance, I did
+not ascertain; but I presume that the alteration was common to the
+approximating parties. I was likewise unable to determine whether I was
+a necessary party to the production of this strange transformation, or
+whether it took place as well, under the given circumstances, 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
+travelled through a desert region of dry sand and glittering rocks,
+peopled principally by goblin-fairies. When I first entered their
+domains, and, indeed, whenever I fell in with another tribe of them,
+they began mocking me with offered handfuls of gold and jewels, making
+hideous grimaces at me, and performing the most antic homage, as if
+they thought I expected reverence, and meant to humour me like 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, as if he had been caught doing something inhuman; then,
+throwing down his handful of 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 to observe them much, for the
+shadow was in my heart as well as at my heels. I walked listlessly and
+almost hopelessly along, till I arrived one day at a small spring;
+which, bursting cool from the heart of a sun-heated rock, flowed
+somewhat southwards from the direction I had been taking. I drank of
+this spring, and found myself wonderfully refreshed. A kind of love to
+the cheerful little stream arose in my heart. It was born in a desert;
+but it seemed to say to itself, “I will flow, and sing, and lave my
+banks, till I make my desert a paradise.” I thought I could not do
+better than follow it, and see 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 of grass appeared on its banks, and
+then, here and there, a stunted bush. Sometimes it disappeared
+altogether under ground; and after I had wandered some distance, as
+near as I could guess, in the direction it seemed to take, I would
+suddenly hear it again, singing, sometimes far away to my right or
+left, amongst new rocks, over which it made new cataracts of watery
+melodies. The verdure on its banks increased as it flowed; other
+streams joined it; and at last, after many days’ travel, I found
+myself, one gorgeous summer evening, resting by the side of a broad
+river, with a glorious horse-chestnut tree towering above me, and
+dropping its blossoms, milk-white and rosy-red, all about me. As I sat,
+a gush of joy sprang forth in my heart, and over flowed at my 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 some loving 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 perfumed the air, they seemed to dye it a faint
+rose-hue. The colour floated abroad with the scent, and clomb, and
+spread, until the whole west blushed and glowed with the 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 of the 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, I would 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 not slept for months. I did not awake till late in the
+morning; when, refreshed in body and mind, I rose as from the death
+that wipes out the sadness of life, and then dies itself in the new
+morrow. Again I followed the stream; now climbing a steep rocky bank
+that hemmed it in; now wading through long grasses and wild flowers in
+its path; now through meadows; and anon through woods that crowded down
+to the very lip of the water.
+
+At length, in a nook of the river, gloomy with the weight of
+overhanging foliage, and still and deep as a soul in which the torrent
+eddies of pain have hollowed a great gulf, and then, subsiding in
+violence, have left it full of a motionless, fathomless sorrow—I saw a
+little boat lying. So still was the water here, that the boat needed no
+fastening. It lay as if some one had just stepped ashore, and would in
+a moment return. But as there were no signs of presence, and no track
+through the thick bushes; and, moreover, as I was in Fairy Land where
+one does very much as he pleases, I forced my way to the brink, 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 float
+whither the stream would carry us. I seemed to lose myself in the great
+flow of sky above me unbroken in its infinitude, except when now and
+then, coming nearer the shore at a bend in the river, a tree would
+sweep its mighty head silently above mine, and glide away back into the
+past, never more to fling its shadow over me. I fell asleep in this
+cradle, in which mother Nature was rocking her weary child; and while I
+slept, the sun slept not, but went round his arched way. When I awoke,
+he slept in the waters, and I went on my silent path beneath a round
+silvery moon. And a pale moon looked up from the floor of the great
+blue cave that lay in the abysmal silence beneath.
+
+Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call the reality?—not so
+grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier? Fair as is the
+gliding sloop on the shining sea, the wavering, trembling, unresting
+sail below is fairer still. Yea, the reflecting ocean itself, reflected
+in the mirror, has a wondrousness about its waters that somewhat
+vanishes when I turn towards itself. All mirrors are magic mirrors. The
+commonest room is a room in a poem when I turn to the glass. (And this
+reminds me, while I write, of a strange story which I read in the fairy
+palace, and of which I will try to make a feeble memorial in its
+place.) In whatever way it may be accounted for, of one thing we may be
+sure, that this feeling is no cheat; for there is no cheating in nature
+and the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truth
+involved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning. Even
+the memories of past pain are beautiful; and past delights, though
+beheld only through clefts in the grey clouds of sorrow, are lovely as
+Fairy Land. But how have I wandered into the deeper fairyland of the
+soul, while as yet I only float towards the fairy palace of Fairy Land!
+The moon, which is the lovelier memory or reflex of the down-gone sun,
+the joyous day seen in the faint mirror of the brooding night, had rapt
+me away.
+
+I sat up in the boat. Gigantic forest trees were about me; through
+which, like a silver snake, twisted and twined the great river. The
+little waves, when I moved in the boat, heaved and fell with a plash as
+of molten silver, breaking the image of the moon into a thousand
+morsels, fusing again into one, as the ripples of laughter die into the
+still face of joy. The sleeping woods, in undefined massiveness; the
+water that flowed in its sleep; and, above all, the enchantress moon,
+which had cast them all, with her pale eye, into the charmed slumber,
+sank into my soul, and I felt as if I had died in a dream, and should
+never more awake.
+
+From this I was partly aroused by a glimmering of white, that, through
+the trees on the left, vaguely crossed my vision, as I gazed upwards.
+But the trees again hid the object; and at the moment, some strange
+melodious bird took up its song, and sang, not an ordinary bird-song,
+with constant repetitions of the same melody, but what sounded like a
+continuous strain, in which one thought was expressed, deepening in
+intensity as evolved in progress. It sounded like a welcome already
+overshadowed with the coming farewell. As in all sweetest music, a
+tinge of sadness was in every note. Nor do we know how much of the
+pleasures even of life we owe to the intermingled sorrows. Joy cannot
+unfold the deepest truths, although deepest truth must be deepest joy.
+Cometh white-robed Sorrow, stooping and wan, and flingeth wide the
+doors she may not enter. Almost we linger with Sorrow for very love.
+
+As the song concluded the stream bore my little boat with a gentle
+sweep round a bend of the river; and lo! on a broad lawn, which rose
+from the water’s edge with a long green slope to a clear elevation from
+which the trees receded on all sides, stood a stately palace glimmering
+ghostly in the moonshine: it seemed to be built throughout of the
+whitest marble. There was no reflection of moonlight from windows—there
+seemed to be none; so there was no cold glitter; only, as I said, a
+ghostly shimmer. Numberless shadows tempered the shine, from column and
+balcony and tower. For everywhere galleries ran along the face of the
+buildings; wings were extended in many directions; and numberless
+openings, through which the moonbeams vanished into the interior, and
+which served both for doors and windows, had their separate balconies
+in front, communicating with a common gallery that rose on its own
+pillars. Of course, 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 inner topography 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 that a plank, serving for a seat, was unfastened, and with that I
+brought the boat to the bank and scrambled on shore. Deep soft turf
+sank beneath my feet, as I went up the ascent towards the palace.
+
+When I reached it, I saw that it stood on a great platform of marble,
+with an ascent, by broad stairs of the same, all round it. Arrived on
+the platform, I found there was an extensive outlook over the forest,
+which, however, was rather veiled than revealed by the moonlight.
+
+Entering by a wide gateway, but without gates, into an inner court,
+surrounded on all sides by great marble pillars supporting galleries
+above, I saw a large fountain of porphyry in the middle, throwing up a
+lofty column of water, which fell, 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 the building. Although the moon
+was by this time so low in the west, that not a ray of 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. For
+the top of the column of water, just as it spread to fall, caught the
+moonbeams, and like a great pale lamp, hung high in the night air,
+threw a dim memory of light (as it were) over the court below. This
+court was paved in diamonds of white and red marble. According to my
+custom since I entered Fairy Land, of taking for a guide whatever I
+first found moving in any direction, I followed the stream from the
+basin of the fountain. It led me to a great open door, beneath the
+ascending steps of which it ran through a low arch and disappeared.
+Entering here, I found myself in a great hall, surrounded with white
+pillars, and paved with black and white. This I could see by the
+moonlight, which, from the other side, streamed through open windows
+into the hall.
+
+Its height I could not distinctly see. As soon as I entered, I had the
+feeling so 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 my visit to the Church of Darkness, my power
+of seeing the fairies of the higher orders had gradually diminished,
+until it had almost ceased. But I could frequently believe in their
+presence while unable to see them. Still, although I had company, and
+doubtless of a safe kind, it seemed rather dreary to spend the night in
+an empty marble hall, however beautiful, especially as the moon was
+near the going down, and it would soon be dark. So I began at the place
+where I entered, and walked round the hall, looking for some door or
+passage that might lead me to a more hospitable chamber. As I walked, I
+was deliciously haunted with the feeling that behind some one of the
+seemingly innumerable pillars, one who loved me was waiting for me.
+Then I thought she was following me from pillar to pillar as I went
+along; but no arms came out of the faint moonlight, and no sigh assured
+me of her presence.
+
+At length I came to an open corridor, into which I turned;
+notwithstanding that, in doing so, I left the light behind. Along this
+I walked with outstretched hands, groping my way, till, arriving at
+another corridor, which seemed to strike off at right angles to that in
+which I was, I saw at the end a faintly glimmering light, too pale even
+for moonshine, resembling rather a stray phosphorescence. However,
+where everything was white, a little light went a great way. So I
+walked on to the end, and a long corridor it was. When I came up to the
+light, I found that it proceeded from what looked like silver letters
+upon 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 had as yet no right to the honours of a knight, I ventured
+to conclude that the chamber was indeed intended for me; and, opening
+the door without hesitation, I entered. 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 large pieces of some
+sweet-scented wood, supported by dogs of silver, was burning on the
+hearth, and a bright lamp stood on a table, in the midst of a plentiful
+meal, 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 the little stream from my basin had led me into Fairy Land.
+There was the very carpet of grass and moss and daisies, which I had
+myself designed; the curtains of pale blue silk, that fell like a
+cataract over the windows; the old-fashioned bed, with the chintz
+furniture, on which I had slept from boyhood. “Now I shall sleep,” I
+said to myself. “My shadow dares not come here.”
+
+I sat down to the table, and began to help myself to the good things
+before me with confidence. And now I found, as in many instances
+before, how true the fairy tales are; for I was waited on, all the time
+of my meal, by invisible hands. I had scarcely to do more than look
+towards anything I wanted, when it was brought me, just as if it had
+come to me of itself. My glass was kept filled with the wine I had
+chosen, until I looked towards another bottle or decanter; when a fresh
+glass was substituted, and the other wine supplied. When I had eaten
+and drank more heartily and joyfully than ever since I entered Fairy
+Land, the whole was removed by several attendants, of whom some were
+male and some female, as I thought I could distinguish from the way the
+dishes were lifted from the table, and the motion with which they were
+carried out of the room. As soon as they were all taken away, I heard a
+sound as of the shutting of 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 in the 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
+Land was, after all, only a vision of the night. The sound of the
+falling waters of the 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 sense of past blessedness, I awoke in the full morning, I found,
+indeed, that the room was still my own; but that it looked abroad upon
+an unknown landscape of forest and hill and dale on the one side—and on
+the other, upon the marble court, with the great fountain, the crest of
+which now flashed glorious in the sun, and cast on the pavement beneath
+a shower of faint shadows from the waters that fell from it into the
+marble basin below.
+
+Agreeably to all authentic accounts of the treatment of travellers in
+Fairy Land, I found by my bedside a complete suit of fresh clothing,
+just such as I was in the habit of wearing; for, though varied
+sufficiently from the one removed, it was yet in complete accordance
+with my tastes. I dressed myself in this, and went out. The whole
+palace shone like silver in the sun. The marble was partly dull and
+partly polished; and every pinnacle, dome, and turret ended in a ball,
+or cone, or cusp of silver. It was like frost-work, and too dazzling,
+in the sun, for earthly eyes like mine.
+
+I will not attempt to describe the environs, save by saying, that all
+the pleasures to be found in the most varied and artistic arrangement
+of wood and river, lawn and wild forest, garden and shrubbery, rocky
+hill and luxurious vale; in living creatures wild and tame, in gorgeous
+birds, scattered fountains, little streams, and reedy lakes—all were
+here. Some parts of the palace itself I shall have occasion to describe
+more minutely.
+
+For this whole morning I never thought of my demon shadow; and not till
+the weariness which supervened on delight brought it again to my
+memory, did I look round to see if it was behind me: it was scarcely
+discernible. But its presence, however faintly revealed, sent a pang to
+my heart, for the pain of which, not all the beauties around me could
+compensate. It was followed, however, by the comforting reflection
+that, peradventure, I might here find the magic word of power to banish
+the demon and set me free, so that I should no longer be a man beside
+myself. The Queen of Fairy Land, thought I, must dwell here: surely she
+will put forth her power to deliver me, and send me singing through the
+further gates of her country back to my own land. “Shadow of me!” I
+said; “which art not me, but which representest thyself to me as me;
+here I may find a shadow of light which will devour thee, the shadow of
+darkness! Here I may find a blessing which will fall on thee as a
+curse, and damn thee to the blackness whence thou hast emerged
+unbidden.” I said this, stretched at length on the slope of the lawn
+above the river; and as the hope arose within me, the sun came forth
+from a light fleecy cloud that swept across his face; and hill and
+dale, and the great river winding on through the still 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 magnificent
+dragon-fly went past me like an arrow from a bow, and a whole concert
+of birds burst into choral song.
+
+The heat of the sun soon became too intense even for passive support. I
+therefore rose, and sought the shelter of one of the arcades. Wandering
+along from one to another of these, wherever my heedless steps led me,
+and wondering everywhere at the simple magnificence of the building, I
+arrived at another hall, the roof of which was of a pale blue, spangled
+with constellations of silver stars, and supported by porphyry pillars
+of a paler red than ordinary.—In this house (I may remark in passing),
+silver seemed everywhere preferred to gold; and such was the purity of
+the air, that it showed 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 a huge basin, many feet deep, and filled with
+the purest, most liquid and radiant water. The sides of the basin were
+white marble, and the bottom was paved with all kinds of refulgent
+stones, of every shape and hue.
+
+In their arrangement, you would have supposed, at first sight, that
+there was no design, for they seemed to lie as if cast there from
+careless and playful hands; but it was a most harmonious confusion; and
+as I looked at the play of their colours, especially when the waters
+were in motion, I came at last to feel as if not one little pebble
+could be displaced, without injuring the effect of the whole. Beneath
+this floor of the water, lay the reflection of the blue inverted roof,
+fretted with its silver stars, like a second deeper sea, clasping and
+upholding the first. The fairy bath was probably fed from the fountain
+in the court. Led by an irresistible desire, I undressed, and plunged
+into 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 rose to the surface, shook the water from my hair, and swam
+as in a rainbow, amid the coruscations of the gems below seen through
+the agitation caused by my motion. Then, with open eyes, I dived, and
+swam beneath the surface. And here was a new wonder. For the basin,
+thus beheld, appeared to extend on all sides like a sea, with here and
+there groups as of ocean rocks, hollowed by ceaseless billows into
+wondrous caves and grotesque pinnacles. Around the caves grew sea-weeds
+of all hues, and the corals glowed between; while far off, I saw the
+glimmer of what seemed to be creatures of human form at home in the
+waters. I thought I had been enchanted; and that when I rose to the
+surface, I should find myself miles from land, swimming alone upon a
+heaving sea; but when my eyes emerged from the waters, I saw above me
+the blue spangled vault, and the red pillars around. I dived again, and
+found myself once more in the heart of a great sea. I then arose, and
+swam to the edge, where I got out easily, for the water reached the
+very brim, and, as I drew near washed in tiny waves over the black
+marble border. I dressed, and went out, deeply refreshed.
+
+And now I began to discern faint, gracious forms, here and there
+throughout the building. 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 a group, or single
+individual, would fade entirely out of the realm of my vision as I
+gazed. When evening came, and the moon arose, clear as a round of a
+horizon-sea when the sun hangs over it in the west, I began to see them
+all more plainly; especially when they came between me and the moon;
+and yet more especially, when I myself was in the shade. But, even
+then, I sometimes saw only the passing wave of a white robe; or a
+lovely arm or neck gleamed by in the moonshine; or white feet went
+walking alone over the moony sward. Nor, I grieve to say, did I ever
+come much nearer to these glorious beings, or ever look upon the Queen
+of the Fairies herself. My destiny ordered otherwise.
+
+In this palace of marble and silver, and fountains and moonshine, I
+spent many days; waited upon constantly in my room with everything
+desirable, and bathing daily in the fairy bath. All this time I was
+little troubled with my demon shadow I had a vague feeling that he was
+somewhere about the palace; but it seemed as if the hope that I should
+in this place be finally freed from his hated presence, had sufficed to
+banish him for a time. How and where I found him, 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, not to 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 open lawn. My evenings were by-and-by
+spent in a part of the palace, the account of which, and of my
+adventures in connection with it, I must yet postpone for a little.
+
+The library was a mighty hall, lighted from the roof, which was formed
+of something like glass, vaulted over in a single piece, and stained
+throughout with a great mysterious picture in gorgeous colouring.
+
+The walls were lined from floor to roof with books and books: most of
+them in ancient bindings, but some in strange new fashions which I had
+never seen, and which, 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. These galleries were built of all kinds
+of coloured stones; all sorts of marble and granite, with porphyry,
+jasper, lapis lazuli, agate, and various others, were ranged in
+wonderful melody of successive colours. Although the material, then, of
+which these galleries and stairs were built, rendered necessary a
+certain degree 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 it would be presumptuous in me to venture to look within
+them. But the use of the other books seemed free; and day after day I
+came to the library, threw myself on one of the many sumptuous eastern
+carpets, which lay here and there on the floor, and read, and read,
+until weary; if that can be designated as weariness, which was rather
+the faintness of rapturous delight; or until, sometimes, the failing of
+the light invited me to go abroad, in the hope that a cool gentle
+breeze might have arisen to bathe, with an airy invigorating bath, the
+limbs which the glow of the burning spirit within had withered no less
+than the glow of the blazing sun without.
+
+One peculiarity of these books, or at least most of those I looked
+into, I must make a somewhat vain attempt to describe.
+
+If, for instance, it was a book of metaphysics I opened, I had scarcely
+read two pages before I seemed to myself to be pondering over
+discovered truth, and constructing the intellectual machine whereby to
+communicate the discovery to my fellow men. With some books, however,
+of this nature, it seemed rather as if the process was removed yet a
+great way further back; and I was trying to find the root of a
+manifestation, the spiritual truth whence a material vision sprang; or
+to combine two propositions, both apparently true, either at once or in
+different remembered moods, and to find the point in which their
+invisibly converging lines would unite in one, revealing a truth higher
+than either and differing from both; though so far from being opposed
+to either, that it was that 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, rose around me. I walked, I
+discovered, I fought, I suffered, I rejoiced in my success. Was it a
+history? I was the chief actor therein. I suffered my own blame; I was
+glad in my own praise. With a fiction it was the same. Mine was the
+whole story. For I took the place of the character who was most like
+myself, and his story was mine; until, grown weary with the life of
+years condensed in an hour, or arrived at my deathbed, or the end of
+the volume, I would awake, with a sudden bewilderment, to the
+consciousness of my present life, recognising the walls and roof around
+me, and finding I joyed or sorrowed only in a book. If the book was a
+poem, the words disappeared, or took the subordinate position of an
+accompaniment to the succession of forms and images that 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 is not like ours. The wondrous account, in such a feeble,
+fragmentary way as is possible to me, I would willingly impart. Whether
+or not it was all a poem, I cannot tell; but, from the impulse I felt,
+when I first contemplated writing it, to break into rime, to which
+impulse I shall give way if it comes upon me again, 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, in feeling at least, nearer the truth than they who regard the
+heavenly bodies as related to them merely by a common obedience to an
+external law. All that man sees has to do with man. Worlds cannot be
+without an intermundane relationship. The community of the centre of
+all creation suggests an interradiating connection and dependence of
+the parts. Else a grander idea is conceivable than that which is
+already imbodied. The blank, which is only a forgotten life, lying
+behind the consciousness, and the misty splendour, which is an
+undeveloped life, lying before it, may be full of mysterious
+revelations of other 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-encircling twin-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 portions of 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 nearer to the sun. For they arrive no one knows how. A maiden,
+walking alone, hears a cry: for even there a cry is the first
+utterance; and searching about, she findeth, 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 and unexpected spot, a little
+child. This she taketh tenderly, and beareth home with joy, calling
+out, “Mother, mother”—if so be that her mother lives—“I have got a
+baby—I have found a child!” All the household gathers round to
+see;—“_Where is it? What is it like? Where did you find it?_” and
+such-like questions, abounding. And thereupon she relates the whole
+story of the discovery; for by the circumstances, such as season of the
+year, time of the day, condition of the air, and such like, and,
+especially, the peculiar and never-repeated aspect of the heavens and
+earth at the time, and the nature of the place of shelter wherein it is
+found, is determined, or at least indicated, the nature of the child
+thus discovered. Therefore, at certain seasons, and in certain states
+of the weather, according, in part, to their own fancy, the young women
+go out to look for children. They generally avoid seeking them, though
+they cannot help sometimes finding them, in places and with
+circumstances uncongenial to their peculiar likings. But no sooner is a
+child found, than its claim for protection and 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 long
+intervals; and mostly in the warm evenings, about the middle of
+twilight; and principally in the woods and along the river banks, do
+the maidens go looking for 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 who understand 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 the boy’s
+low cry; or at eve the lonely maiden (for the same woman never finds a
+second, at least while the first lives) discovers the girl by the
+glimmer of her white skin, lying in a nest like that of the lark, amid
+long encircling grasses, and the upward-gazing eyes of the lowly
+daisies; whether the storm bowed the forest trees around, or the still
+frost fixed in silence the else flowing and babbling stream.
+
+After they grow up, the men and women are but little together. There is
+this peculiar difference between them, which likewise distinguishes the
+women from those of the earth. The men alone have arms; the women have
+only wings. Resplendent wings are they, wherein they can shroud
+themselves from head to foot in a panoply of glistering glory. By these
+wings alone, it may frequently be judged in what seasons, and under
+what aspects, they were born. From those that came in winter, go great
+white wings, white as snow; the edge of every feather shining like the
+sheen of silver, so that they flash and glitter like frost in the sun.
+But underneath, they are tinged with a faint pink or rose-colour. Those
+born in spring have wings of a brilliant green, green as grass; and
+towards the edges the feathers are enamelled like the surface of the
+grass-blades. These again are white within. Those that are born in
+summer have wings of a deep rose-colour, lined with pale gold. And
+those born in autumn have purple wings, with a rich brown on the
+inside. But these colours are modified and altered in all varieties,
+corresponding to the mood of the day and hour, as well as the season of
+the year; and sometimes I found the various colours so intermingled,
+that I could not determine even the season, though doubtless the
+hieroglyphic could be deciphered by more experienced eyes. One
+splendour, in particular, I remember—wings of deep carmine, with an
+inner down of warm gray, around a form of brilliant whiteness.
+
+She had been found as the sun went down through a low sea-fog, casting
+crimson along a broad sea-path into a little cave on the shore, where a
+bathing maiden saw her lying.
+
+But though I speak of sun and fog, and sea and shore, the world there
+is in some respects very different from the earth whereon men live. For
+instance, the waters reflect no forms. To the unaccustomed eye they
+appear, if undisturbed, like the surface of a dark metal, only that the
+latter would reflect indistinctly, whereas they reflect not at all,
+except light which falls immediately upon them. This has a great effect
+in causing the landscapes to differ from those on the earth. On the
+stillest evening, no tall ship on the sea sends a long wavering
+reflection almost to the feet of him on shore; the face of no maiden
+brightens at its own beauty in a still forest-well. The sun and 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
+the women sport in its waters like gorgeous sea-birds. The men more
+rarely enter them. But, on the contrary, the sky reflects everything
+beneath it, as if it were built of water like ours. Of course, from its
+concavity there is some distortion of the reflected objects; yet
+wondrous combinations of form are often to be seen in the overhanging
+depth. And then it is not shaped so much like a round dome as the sky
+of the earth, but, more of an egg-shape, rises to a 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 with golden
+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
+steep rock that overhung the sea. They were all questioning me about my
+world and the ways thereof. In making reply to one of their questions,
+I was compelled to say that children are not born in the Earth as with
+them. Upon this I was assailed with a whole battery of inquiries, which
+at first I tried to avoid; but, at last, I was compelled, in the
+vaguest manner I could invent, to make some approach 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 their great 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
+flashed from the promontory into the gulf at its foot. A great light
+shone in the eyes of one maiden, who turned and walked slowly away,
+with her purple and white wings half dispread behind her. She was
+found, the next morning, dead beneath a withered tree on a bare
+hill-side, some miles inland. They buried her where she lay, as is
+their custom; for, before they die, they instinctively search for a
+spot 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 their arms 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 indescribable longing for something, they know not what,
+which seizes them, and drives them into solitude, consuming them
+within, till the body fails. When a youth and a maiden look too deep
+into each other’s eyes, this longing seizes and possesses 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,
+they find each other, it goes well with them; if not, it will seem to
+go ill. But of this I know nothing. When I told them that the women on
+the Earth had not wings like them, but arms, they stared, and said how
+bold and masculine they must look; not knowing that their wings,
+glorious as they are, are but undeveloped arms.
+
+But see the power of this book, that, while recounting what I can
+recall of its contents, I write as if myself had visited the far-off
+planet, learned its ways and 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 the regions of spring; for, as in our earth, the seasons are
+divided over the globe. 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
+travelled towards the southern regions of her globe, to meet the spring
+on its slow way northwards; and how, after many sad adventures, many
+disappointed hopes, and many tears, bitter and fruitless, she found at
+last, one stormy afternoon, in a leafless forest, a single snowdrop
+growing betwixt the borders of the winter and 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 season from 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.”
+          OLD BALLAD.
+
+“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.”
+          SIR JOHN SUCKLING.
+
+
+One story I will try to reproduce. But, alas! it is like trying to
+reconstruct a 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 a power that the medium disappeared
+from the consciousness, and it was occupied only with the things
+themselves. My representation of it must resemble a translation from a
+rich and powerful language, capable of embodying the thoughts of a
+splendidly developed people, into the meagre and half-articulate speech
+of a savage tribe. Of course, while I read it, I was Cosmo, and his
+history was mine. Yet, all the time, I seemed to have a kind of double
+consciousness, and the story a double meaning. Sometimes it seemed only
+to represent 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 land run the creeks and gulfs from the unresting sea; as the
+lights and influences of the upper worlds sink silently through the
+earth’s atmosphere; so doth Faerie invade the world of men, and
+sometimes startle the common eye with an association as of cause and
+effect, when between the two no connecting links can be traced.
+
+Cosmo von Wehrstahl was a student at the University of Prague. Though
+of a noble family, he was poor, and prided himself upon the
+independence that poverty gives; for what will not a man pride himself
+upon, when he cannot get rid of it? A favourite with his fellow
+students, he yet had no companions; and none of them had ever crossed
+the threshold of his lodging in the top of one of the highest houses in
+the old town. Indeed, the secret of much of that complaisance which
+recommended him to his fellows, was the thought of his unknown retreat,
+whither in the evening he could betake himself and indulge undisturbed
+in his own studies and reveries. These studies, besides those subjects
+necessary to his course at the University, embraced some less commonly
+known and approved; for in a secret drawer lay the works of Albertus
+Magnus and Cornelius Agrippa, along with others less read and more
+abstruse. As yet, however, he had followed these researches only from
+curiosity, and had turned them to no practical purpose.
+
+His lodging consisted of one large low-ceiled room, singularly bare of
+furniture; for besides a couple of wooden chairs, a couch which served
+for dreaming on both by day and night, and a great press of black oak,
+there was very little in the room that could be called furniture.
+
+But curious instruments were heaped in the corners; and in one stood a
+skeleton, half-leaning against the wall, half-supported by a string
+about its neck. One of its hands, all of fingers, rested on the heavy
+pommel of a great sword that stood beside it.
+
+Various weapons were scattered about over the floor. The walls were
+utterly bare of adornment; for the few strange things, such as a large
+dried bat with wings dispread, the skin of a porcupine, and a stuffed
+sea-mouse, could hardly be reckoned as such. But although his fancy
+delighted in vagaries like these, he indulged his imagination with far
+different fare. His mind had never yet been filled with an absorbing
+passion; but it lay like a still twilight open to any wind, whether the
+low breath that wafts but odours, or the storm that bows the great
+trees till they strain and creak. He saw everything as through a
+rose-coloured glass. When he looked from his window on the street
+below, not a maiden passed but she moved as in a story, and drew his
+thoughts after her till she disappeared in the vista. When he walked in
+the streets, he always felt as if reading a tale, into which he sought
+to weave every face of interest that went by; and every sweet voice
+swept his soul as with the wing of a passing angel. 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 no
+utterance, they grew, and swelled, and undermined. He used to lie on
+his hard couch, and read a tale or a poem, till the book dropped from
+his hand; but he dreamed on, he knew not whether awake or asleep, until
+the opposite roof grew upon his sense, and turned golden in the
+sunrise. Then he arose too; and the impulses 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, which had lain drowned in
+the cataract of the day, rose up in his soul, with all its stars, and
+dim-seen phantom shapes. But this could hardly last long. Some one form
+must sooner or later step within the charmed circle, enter the house of
+life, and compel the bewildered magician to kneel and worship.
+
+One afternoon, towards dusk, he was wandering dreamily in one of the
+principal streets, when a fellow student roused him by a slap on the
+shoulder, and asked him to accompany him into a little back alley to
+look at some old armour which he had taken a fancy to possess. Cosmo
+was considered an authority in every matter pertaining to arms, ancient
+or modern. In the use of weapons, none of the students could come near
+him; and his practical acquaintance with some had principally
+contributed to establish his authority in reference to all. He
+accompanied him willingly.
+
+They entered a narrow alley, and thence a dirty little court, where a
+low arched door admitted them into a heterogeneous assemblage of
+everything musty, and dusty, and old, that could well be imagined. His
+verdict on the armour was satisfactory, and his companion at once
+concluded the purchase. As they were leaving the place, Cosmo’s eye was
+attracted by an old mirror of an elliptical shape, which leaned against
+the wall, covered with dust. Around it was some curious carving, which
+he could see but very indistinctly by the glimmering light which the
+owner of the shop carried in his hand. It was this carving that
+attracted his attention; at least so it appeared to him. He left the
+place, however, with his friend, taking no further notice of it. They
+walked together to the main street, where they parted and took opposite
+directions.
+
+No sooner was Cosmo left alone, than the thought of the curious old
+mirror returned to him. A strong desire to see it more plainly arose
+within him, and he directed his steps once more towards the shop. The
+owner opened the door when 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, and looking here and there as if
+after something that eluded them. Pretending to examine several other
+articles, Cosmo at last approached the mirror, and requested to have it
+taken down.
+
+“Take it down yourself, master; I cannot reach it,” said the old man.
+
+Cosmo took it down carefully, when he saw that the carving was indeed
+delicate and costly, being both of admirable design and execution;
+containing withal many 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 felt in the old mirror; so much,
+indeed, that he now longed to possess it, in order to study its frame
+at his leisure. He pretended, however, to want it only for use; and
+saying he feared the plate could be of little service, as it was rather
+old, he brushed away a little of the dust from its face, expecting to
+see a dull reflection within. His surprise was great when he found the
+reflection brilliant, revealing a glass not only uninjured by age, but
+wondrously clear and perfect (should the whole correspond to this part)
+even for one newly from the hands of the maker. He asked carelessly
+what the owner wanted for the thing. The old man replied by mentioning
+a sum of money far beyond the reach of poor Cosmo, who proceeded to
+replace the mirror where it had 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 your look,”
+said he.
+
+Cosmo could not return the compliment. In fact, now he looked closely
+at him for the first time, he felt a kind of repugnance to him, mingled
+with a strange feeling 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
+father very well, young sir. I dare say in some odd corners of my
+house, you might find some old things with his crest and cipher upon
+them still. Well, I like you: you shall have the mirror at the fourth
+part of what I asked for it; but upon one condition.”
+
+“What is that?” said Cosmo; for, although the price was still a great
+deal for him to give, he could just manage it; and the desire to
+possess the mirror had increased to an altogether unaccountable degree,
+since it had seemed beyond his reach.
+
+“That if you should ever want to get rid of it again, you will let me
+have the first offer.”
+
+“Certainly,” replied Cosmo, with a smile; adding, “a moderate condition
+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 it in
+his hands.
+
+“No, no; I will carry it myself,” said he; for he had a peculiar
+dislike to revealing his residence to any one, and more especially to
+this person, to whom he felt every moment a greater antipathy. “Just as
+you please,” said the old creature, and muttered to himself as he held
+his light 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 had enough of it by now!”
+
+Cosmo carried his prize carefully home. But all the way he had an
+uncomfortable feeling that he was watched and dogged. Repeatedly he
+looked about, but saw nothing to justify his suspicions. Indeed, the
+streets were too crowded and too ill lighted to expose very readily a
+careful spy, if such there should be at his heels. He reached his
+lodging in safety, and leaned his purchase against the 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 folds of one
+of his haunting dreams.
+
+He returned home earlier than usual the next day, and fixed the mirror
+to the wall, 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 of a sunny spring, the mirror shone out from beneath the envious
+covering. But his interest was chiefly occupied with the curious
+carving of the frame. This he cleaned as well as he could with a brush;
+and then he proceeded to a minute examination of its various parts, in
+the hope of discovering some index to the intention of the carver. In
+this, however, he was unsuccessful; and, at length, pausing with some
+weariness and disappointment, he gazed vacantly for a few moments 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 exists
+between it and a man’s imagination! For this room of mine, as I behold
+it in the glass, is the same, and yet not the same. It is not the mere
+representation of the room I live in, but it looks just as if I were
+reading about it in a story I like. All its commonness has disappeared.
+The mirror has lifted it out of the region of fact into the realm of
+art; and the very representing of it to me has clothed with interest
+that which was otherwise hard and bare; just as one sees with delight
+upon the stage the representation of a character from which one would
+escape in life as from something unendurably wearisome. But is it not
+rather that art rescues nature from the weary and sated regards of our
+senses, and the degrading injustice of our anxious everyday life, and,
+appealing to the imagination, which dwells apart, reveals Nature in
+some degree as she really is, and as she represents herself to the eye
+of the child, whose every-day life, fearless and unambitious, meets the
+true import of the wonder-teeming world around him, and rejoices
+therein without questioning? That skeleton, now—I almost fear it,
+standing there so still, with eyes only for the unseen, like a
+watch-tower looking across all the waste of this busy world into the
+quiet regions of rest beyond. And yet I know every bone and every joint
+in it as well as my own fist. And that old battle-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, and brain, invading
+the Unknown with yet another bewildered ghost. I should like to live in
+_that_ room if I could only get into it.”
+
+Scarcely had the half-moulded words floated from him, as he stood
+gazing into the mirror, when, striking him as with a flash of amazement
+that fixed him in his posture, noiseless and unannounced, glided
+suddenly through the door into the reflected room, with stately motion,
+yet reluctant and faltering step, the graceful form of a woman, clothed
+all in white. Her back only was visible as she walked slowly up to the
+couch in the further end of the room, on which she laid herself
+wearily, turning towards him a face of unutterable loveliness, in which
+suffering, and dislike, and a sense of compulsion, strangely mingled
+with the beauty. He stood without the power of motion for some moments,
+with his eyes irrecoverably fixed upon her; and even after he was
+conscious of the ability to move, he could not summon up courage to
+turn and look on her, face to face, in the veritable chamber in which
+he stood. At length, with a sudden effort, in which the exercise of the
+will was so pure, that it seemed involuntary, he turned his face to the
+couch. It was vacant. In bewilderment, mingled with terror, he turned
+again to the mirror: there, on the reflected couch, lay the exquisite
+lady-form. She lay with closed eyes, whence two large tears were just
+welling from beneath the veiling lids; still as death, save for the
+convulsive motion of her bosom.
+
+Cosmo himself could not have described what he felt. His emotions were
+of a kind that destroyed consciousness, and could never be clearly
+recalled. He could not help standing yet by the mirror, and keeping his
+eyes fixed on the lady, though he was painfully aware of his rudeness,
+and feared every moment that she would open hers, and meet his fixed
+regard. But he was, ere long, a little relieved; for, after a while,
+her eyelids slowly rose, and her eyes remained uncovered, but
+unemployed for a time; and when, at length, they began to wander about
+the room, as if languidly seeking to make some acquaintance with her
+environment, they were never directed towards him: it seemed nothing
+but what was in the mirror could affect her vision; and, therefore, if
+she saw him at all, it could only be his back, which, of necessity, was
+turned towards her 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 not there, he concluded that if he were to
+turn towards the part in his room corresponding to that in which she
+lay, his reflection would either be invisible to her altogether, or at
+least it must appear to her to gaze vacantly towards her, and no
+meeting of the eyes would produce the impression of spiritual
+proximity. By-and-by her eyes fell upon the skeleton, and he saw her
+shudder and close them. She did not open them again, but signs of
+repugnance continued evident on her countenance. Cosmo would have
+removed the obnoxious thing at once, but he feared to discompose her
+yet more by the assertion of his presence which the act would involve.
+So he stood and watched her. The eyelids yet shrouded the eyes, as a
+costly case the jewels within; the troubled expression gradually faded
+from the countenance, leaving only a faint sorrow behind; the features
+settled into an unchanging expression of rest; and by these signs, and
+the slow regular motion of her breathing, Cosmo knew that she slept. 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 so
+harmonious, that either the delicately moulded foot, or any finger of
+the equally delicate hand, was an index to the whole. As she lay, her
+whole form manifested the relaxation of perfect repose. He gazed till
+he was weary, and at last 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 the page before him. His intellect
+had been stunned by the bold contradiction, to its face, of all its
+experience, and now lay passive, without assertion, or speculation, or
+even conscious astonishment; while his imagination sent one wild dream
+of blessedness after another coursing through his soul. How long he sat
+he knew not; but at length he roused himself, rose, and, trembling in
+every portion of his frame, looked again into the mirror. She was gone.
+The mirror reflected faithfully what his room presented, and nothing
+more. It stood there like a golden setting whence the central jewel has
+been stolen away—like a night-sky without the glory of its stars. She
+had carried with her all the strangeness 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
+to comfort 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 scared by the hateful skeleton, he removed that and
+several other articles of questionable appearance into a recess by the
+side of the hearth, whence they could not possibly cast any reflection
+into the mirror; and having made his poor room as tidy as he could,
+sought the solace of the open sky and of a night wind that had begun to
+blow, for he could not rest where he was. When he returned, somewhat
+composed, he could hardly prevail with himself to lie down on his bed;
+for he could not help feeling as if she had lain upon it; and for him
+to lie there now would be something like sacrilege. However, weariness
+prevailed; and laying himself on the couch, dressed as he was, he slept
+till day.
+
+With a beating heart, beating till he could hardly breathe, he stood in
+dumb hope before the mirror, on the following evening. Again the
+reflected room shone as through a purple vapour in the gathering
+twilight. Everything seemed waiting like himself for a coming splendour
+to glorify its poor earthliness with the presence of a heavenly joy.
+And just as the room vibrated with the strokes of the neighbouring
+church bell, announcing the hour of six, in glided the pale beauty, and
+again laid herself on the couch. Poor Cosmo nearly lost his senses with
+delight. She was there once more! Her eyes sought the corner where the
+skeleton had stood, and a faint gleam of satisfaction crossed her face,
+apparently at seeing it empty. She looked suffering still, but there
+was less of discomfort expressed in her countenance than there had been
+the night before. She took more notice of the things about her, and
+seemed to gaze with some curiosity on the strange apparatus standing
+here and there in her room. At length, 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 pass contagiously
+from her to him as he gazed upon her; and he started as if from a
+dream, when the lady moved, and, without opening her eyes, rose, and
+passed from the room with the gait of a somnambulist.
+
+Cosmo was now in a state of extravagant delight. Most men have a secret
+treasure 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 secret drawer; but Cosmo had a mirror with a lovely lady in
+it. And now that he knew by the skeleton, that she was affected by the
+things around her, he had a new object in life: he would turn the bare
+chamber in the mirror into a room such as no lady need disdain to call
+her own. This he could effect only by furnishing and adorning his. And
+Cosmo was poor. Yet he possessed accomplishments that could be turned
+to account; although, hitherto, he had preferred living on his slender
+allowance, to increasing his means by what his pride considered
+unworthy of his rank. He was the best swordsman in the University; and
+now he offered to give lessons in fencing and similar exercises, to
+such as chose to pay him well for the trouble. His proposal was heard
+with surprise by the students; but it was eagerly accepted by many; and
+soon his instructions were not confined to the richer students, but
+were anxiously 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 thing he did was to remove his apparatus and
+oddities into a closet in the room. Then he placed his bed and a few
+other necessaries on each side of the hearth, and parted them from the
+rest of the room by two screens of Indian fabric. Then he put an
+elegant couch for the lady to lie upon, in the corner where his bed had
+formerly 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 the new couch, she started with a half-smile; then her face grew
+very sad, the tears came to her eyes, and she laid herself upon the
+couch, and pressed her face into the silken cushions, as if to hide
+from everything. She took notice of each addition and each change as
+the work proceeded; and a look of acknowledgment, as if she knew that
+some one was ministering to her, and was grateful for it, mingled with
+the constant look of suffering. At length, after she had lain down as
+usual one evening, her eyes fell upon some paintings with which Cosmo
+had just finished adorning the walls. She rose, and to his great
+delight, 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 of her couch. Gradually, however, her
+countenance had grown more composed; much of the suffering manifest on
+her first appearance had vanished, and a kind of quiet, hopeful
+expression had taken its place; which, however, frequently gave way to
+an anxious, troubled look, mingled with something of sympathetic pity.
+
+Meantime, how fared Cosmo? As might be expected in one of his
+temperament, his interest had blossomed into love, and his love—shall I
+call it _ripened_, or—_withered_ into passion. But, alas! he loved a
+shadow. He could not come near her, could not speak to her, could not
+hear a sound from those sweet lips, to which his longing eyes would
+cling like bees to their 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 break with intensity of life and longing. And the more he did for
+her, the more he loved her; and he hoped that, although she never
+appeared to see him, yet she was pleased to think that one unknown
+would give his life to her. He tried to comfort himself over his
+separation from her, by thinking that perhaps some day she 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 do to enter into communion
+with another? Nay, how many who love never come nearer than to behold
+each other as in a mirror; seem to know and yet never know the inward
+life; never enter the other soul; and part at last, with but the
+vaguest notion of the universe on the borders of which they have been
+hovering for years? If I could but speak to her, and knew that she
+heard me, I should be satisfied.” Once he contemplated painting a
+picture on the wall, which should, of necessity, convey to the lady a
+thought of himself; but, though he had some skill with the pencil, he
+found his hand tremble so much when he began the 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
+faint expression of self-consciousness on her countenance, as if she
+surmised that passionate eyes were fixed upon her. This grew; till at
+last the red blood rose over her neck, and cheek, and brow. Cosmo’s
+longing to approach her became almost delirious. This night she was
+dressed in an evening costume, resplendent with diamonds. This could
+add nothing to her beauty, but it presented it in a new aspect; enabled
+her loveliness to make a new manifestation of itself in a new
+embodiment. For essential beauty is infinite; and, as the soul of
+Nature needs an endless succession of varied forms to embody her
+loveliness, countless faces of beauty springing forth, not any two the
+same, at any one of her heart-throbs; so the individual form needs an
+infinite change of its environments, to enable it to uncover all the
+phases of its loveliness. Diamonds glittered from amidst her hair, half
+hidden in its luxuriance, like stars through dark rain-clouds; and the
+bracelets on her white arms flashed all the colours of a rainbow of
+lightnings, as she lifted her snowy hands to cover her burning face.
+But her beauty shone down all its adornment. “If I might have but one
+of her feet to kiss,” thought Cosmo, “I should be content.” Alas! he
+deceived himself, for passion is never content. Nor did he know that
+there are _two_ ways out of her enchanted house. But, suddenly, as if
+the pang had been driven into his heart from without, revealing itself
+first in pain, and afterwards in definite form, 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. Why does she come and make
+me love her, till I, a strong man, am too faint to look upon her more?”
+He looked again, and her face was pale as a lily. A sorrowful
+compassion seemed to rebuke the glitter of the restless jewels, and the
+slow tears rose in her eyes. She left her room sooner this evening than
+was her wont. Cosmo remained alone, with a feeling as if his bosom had
+been suddenly left empty and hollow, and the weight of the whole world
+was crushing in its walls. The next evening, for the first time since
+she began to come, she came not.
+
+And now Cosmo was in wretched plight. Since the thought of a rival had
+occurred to him, he could not rest for a moment. More than ever he
+longed to see the lady face to face. He persuaded himself that if he
+but knew the worst he would be satisfied; for then he could abandon
+Prague, and find that relief in constant motion, which is the hope of
+all active minds when invaded by distress. 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 the lectures. His
+engagements were neglected. He cared for nothing. The sky, with the
+great sun in it, was to him a heartless, burning desert. The men and
+women in the streets were mere puppets, without motives in themselves,
+or interest to him. 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 the resolution which he had taken and begun to
+execute, before that time had expired.
+
+Reasoning with himself, that it must be by some enchantment connected
+with the mirror, that the form of the lady was to be seen in it, he
+determined to attempt to turn to account what he had hitherto studied
+principally from curiosity. “For,” said he to himself, “if a spell can
+force her presence in that glass (and she came unwillingly at first),
+may not a stronger spell, such as I know, especially with the aid of
+her half-presence in the mirror, if ever she appears again, compel her
+living form to come to me here? If I do her wrong, let love be my
+excuse. I want only to know my doom from her own lips.” He never
+doubted, all the time, that she was a real earthly woman; or, rather,
+that there was a woman, who, somehow or other, threw this reflection of
+her form into the magic mirror.
+
+He opened his secret drawer, took out his books of magic, lighted his
+lamp, and read and made notes from midnight till three in the morning,
+for three successive nights. Then he replaced his books; and the next
+night went out in quest of the materials necessary for the conjuration.
+These were not easy to find; for, in love-charms and all incantations
+of this nature, ingredients are employed scarcely fit to be mentioned,
+and for the thought even of which, in connexion with her, he could only
+excuse himself on the score of his bitter need. At length he succeeded
+in procuring all he required; and on the seventh evening from that on
+which she had last appeared, he found himself prepared for the exercise
+of unlawful and tyrannical power.
+
+He cleared the centre of the room; stooped and drew a circle of red on
+the floor, around the spot where he stood; wrote in the four quarters
+mystical signs, and numbers which were all powers of seven or nine;
+examined the whole ring carefully, to see that no smallest break had
+occurred in the circumference; and then rose from his bending posture.
+As he rose, the church clock struck seven; and, just as she had
+appeared the first time, reluctant, slow, and stately, glided in the
+lady. Cosmo trembled; and when, turning, she revealed a countenance
+worn and wan, as with sickness or inward trouble, he grew faint, and
+felt as if he dared not proceed. But as he gazed on the face and form,
+which now possessed his whole soul, to the exclusion of all other joys
+and griefs, the longing to speak to her, to know that she heard him, to
+hear from her one word in return, became so unendurable, that he
+suddenly and hastily resumed his preparations. Stepping carefully from
+the circle, he put a small 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, beside it.
+
+It was a sultry evening. The air was full of thunder. A sense of
+luxurious depression filled the brain. The sky seemed to have grown
+heavy, and to compress 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 all the vapours of the city could not quench.
+Soon the charcoal glowed. Cosmo sprinkled upon it the incense and other
+substances which he had compounded, and, stepping within the circle,
+turned his face from the brazier and towards the mirror. Then, fixing
+his eyes upon the face of the lady, he began with a trembling voice to
+repeat a powerful incantation. He had not gone far, before the lady
+grew pale; and then, like a returning wave, the blood washed all its
+banks with its crimson tide, and she hid her face in her hands. Then he
+passed to a conjuration stronger yet.
+
+The lady rose and walked uneasily to and fro in her room. Another
+spell; and she 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 fixed themselves full and wide upon his, and she drew
+gradually, and somewhat unwillingly, close to her side of the mirror,
+just as if his eyes had fascinated her. Cosmo had never seen her so
+near before. Now at least, eyes met eyes; but he could not quite
+understand the expression of hers. They were full of 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 or
+agitation to turn him from his task. Looking still in her face, he
+passed on to the mightiest charm he knew. Suddenly the lady turned and
+walked out of the door of her reflected chamber. A moment after she
+entered his room with veritable presence; and, forgetting all his
+precautions, he sprang from the charmed circle, and knelt before her.
+There she stood, the living lady of his passionate visions, alone
+beside him, in a thundery twilight, and the glow of a magic fire.
+
+“Why,” said the lady, with a trembling voice, “didst thou bring a poor
+maiden through the rainy streets alone?”
+
+“Because I am dying for love of thee; but I only brought thee from the
+mirror 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 it was 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, so long as I
+am bewildered with enchantments. It were indeed a joy too great, to lay
+my head on thy bosom and weep to death; for I think thou lovest me,
+though I do not know;—but——”
+
+Cosmo rose from his knees.
+
+“I love thee as—nay, I know not what—for since I have loved thee, 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 the
+mirror.”
+
+“And shall I see thyself instead?”
+
+“That I cannot tell, I will not deceive thee; we may never meet again.”
+
+A fierce struggle arose in Cosmo’s bosom. Now she was in his power. She
+did not dislike him at least; and he could see her when he would. To
+break the mirror would be to destroy his very life, to banish out of
+his universe the only glory it possessed. The whole world would be but
+a prison, if he annihilated the one window that looked into the
+paradise of love. Not yet pure in love, he hesitated.
+
+With a wail of sorrow the lady rose to her feet. “Ah! he loves me not;
+he loves me not even as I love him; and alas! I care more for his love
+than even for the freedom I ask.”
+
+“I will not wait to be willing,” cried Cosmo; and sprang to the corner
+where the great sword stood.
+
+Meantime it had grown very dark; only the embers cast a red glow
+through the room. 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 slipped half-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 room beside them; and ere Cosmo
+could repeat the blow, he fell senseless on the hearth. When he came to
+himself, he found that the lady and the mirror had both disappeared. He
+was seized with a brain fever, which kept him to his couch for weeks.
+
+When he recovered his reason, he began to think what could have become
+of the mirror. For the lady, he hoped she had found her way back as she
+came; but as the mirror involved her fate with its own, he was more
+immediately anxious about 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 not the lightning, but some
+other blow that had struck him down. He concluded that, either by
+supernatural agency, he having exposed himself to the vengeance of the
+demons in leaving the circle of safety, or in some other mode, the
+mirror had 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 into the power of another man; who, if he
+used his power no worse than he himself had done, might yet give Cosmo
+abundant cause to curse the selfish indecision which prevented him from
+shattering the mirror at once. Indeed, to think that she whom he loved,
+and who had prayed to him for freedom, should be still at the mercy, in
+some degree, of the possessor of the mirror, and was at least exposed
+to his constant observation, was in itself enough to madden a chary
+lover.
+
+Anxiety to be well retarded his recovery; but at length he was able to
+creep abroad. He first made his way to the old broker’s, pretending to
+be in search of something else. A laughing sneer on the creature’s face
+convinced him that he knew all about it; but he could not see it
+amongst his furniture, or get any information out of him as to what had
+become of it. He expressed the utmost surprise at hearing it had been
+stolen, a surprise which Cosmo saw at once to be counterfeited; while,
+at the same time, he fancied that the old wretch was not at all anxious
+to have it mistaken for genuine. Full of distress, which he concealed
+as well as he could, he made many searches, but with no avail. Of
+course he could ask no questions; but he kept his ears awake for any
+remotest hint that might set him in a direction of search. He never
+went out without a short heavy hammer of steel about him, that he might
+shatter the mirror the moment he was made happy by the sight of his
+lost treasure, if ever that blessed moment should arrive. Whether he
+should see the lady again, was now a thought altogether secondary, and
+postponed to the achievement of her freedom. He wandered here and
+there, like an anxious ghost, pale and haggard; gnawed ever at the
+heart, by the thought of what she might be suffering—all from his
+fault.
+
+One night, he mingled with a crowd that filled the rooms of one of the
+most distinguished mansions in the city; for he accepted every
+invitation, that he might lose no chance, however poor, of obtaining
+some information that might expedite his discovery. Here he wandered
+about, listening to every stray word that he could catch, in the hope
+of a revelation. As he approached some ladies who were talking quietly
+in a corner, one said to another:
+
+“Have you heard of the strange illness of the Princess von Hohenweiss?”
+
+“Yes; she has been ill for more than a year now. It is very sad for so
+fine a creature to have such a terrible malady. She was better for some
+weeks lately, but within the last few days the same attacks have
+returned, apparently accompanied with more suffering than ever. It is
+altogether an inexplicable story.”
+
+“Is there a story connected with her illness?”
+
+“I have only heard imperfect reports of it; but it is said that she
+gave offence some eighteen months ago to an old woman who had held an
+office of trust in the family, and who, after some incoherent threats,
+disappeared. This peculiar affection followed soon after. But the
+strangest part of the story is its association with the loss of an
+antique mirror, which stood in her dressing-room, and of which she
+constantly made use.”
+
+Here the speaker’s voice sank to a whisper; and Cosmo, although his
+very soul sat listening in his ears, could hear no more. He trembled
+too much to dare to address the ladies, even if it had been advisable
+to expose himself to their curiosity. The name of the Princess was well
+known to him, but he had never seen her; except indeed it was she,
+which now he hardly doubted, who had knelt before him on that dreadful
+night. Fearful of attracting attention, for, from the weak state of his
+health, he could not recover an appearance of calmness, he made his way
+to the open air, and reached his lodgings; glad in this, that he at
+least knew where she lived, although he never dreamed of approaching
+her openly, even if he should be happy enough to free her from her
+hateful 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 at
+the 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 me
+see; 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
+the court, well known for his reckless habits and fierce passions. The
+very possibility that the mirror should be in his possession was hell
+itself to Cosmo. 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 to obtain this he must bide his time. He revolved
+many plans in his mind, but without being able to fix upon any.
+
+At length, one evening, as he was passing the house of Von Steinwald,
+he saw the windows more than usually brilliant. He watched for a while,
+and seeing that 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, there could be no difficulty for a
+man of his carriage.
+
+
+In a lofty, silent chamber, in another part of the city, lay a form
+more like marble than a living woman. The loveliness of death seemed
+frozen upon her face, for her lips were rigid, and her eyelids closed.
+Her long white hands were crossed over her breast, and no breathing
+disturbed their repose. Beside the dead, men speak in whispers, as if
+the deepest rest of all could be broken by the sound of a living voice.
+Just so, though the soul was evidently beyond the reach of all
+intimations from the senses, the two ladies, who sat beside her, spoke
+in the gentlest tones of subdued sorrow. “She has lain so for an hour.”
+
+“This cannot last long, I fear.”
+
+“How much thinner she has grown within the last few weeks! If she would
+only speak, and explain what she suffers, it would be better for her. I
+think she has visions in her trances, but nothing can induce her to
+refer to them when she is awake.”
+
+“Does she ever speak in these trances?”
+
+“I have never heard her; but they say she walks sometimes, and once put
+the whole household in a terrible fright by disappearing for a whole
+hour, and returning drenched with rain, and almost dead with exhaustion
+and fright. But even then she would give no account of what had
+happened.”
+
+A scarce audible murmur from the yet motionless lips of the lady here
+startled her attendants. After several ineffectual attempts at
+articulation, the word “_Cosmo!_” burst from her. Then she lay still as
+before; but only for a moment. With a wild cry, she sprang from the
+couch erect on the floor, 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 that of a spirit bursting from a
+sepulchre, “I am free! I am free! I thank thee!” Then she flung herself
+on the couch, and sobbed; then rose, and paced wildly up and down the
+room, with gestures of mingled delight and anxiety. Then turning to her
+motionless attendants—“Quick, Lisa, my cloak 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 the bridges over the Moldau. The moon was near the zenith, and the
+streets were almost empty. The Princess soon outstripped her attendant,
+and was half-way over 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;
+and there, leaning on the parapet in a recess of the bridge, stood
+Cosmo, in a splendid dress, but with a white and quivering face.
+
+“Cosmo!—I am free—and thy servant for ever. I was coming to you now.”
+
+“And I to you, for Death made me bold; but I could get no further. Have
+I atoned at all? Do I love you a little—truly?”
+
+“Ah, I know now that you love me, my Cosmo; but what do you say about
+death?”
+
+He did not reply. His hand was pressed against his side. She looked
+more closely: the blood was welling from between the fingers. She flung
+her arms around him with a faint bitter wail.
+
+When Lisa came up, she found her mistress kneeling above a wan dead
+face, which smiled on in the spectral moonbeams.
+
+
+And now I will say no more about these wondrous volumes; though I could
+tell many a tale out of them, and could, perhaps, vaguely represent
+some entrancing thoughts of a deeper kind which I found within them.
+From many a sultry noon till twilight, did I sit in that grand hall,
+buried and risen again in these old books. And I trust I have carried
+away in my soul some of the exhalations of their undying leaves. In
+after hours of deserved or needful sorrow, portions of what I read
+there have often come to me again, with an unexpected comforting; which
+was not fruitless, even though the comfort might seem in itself
+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
+fairy palace. I was convinced there must be music in it, but that my
+sense was as yet too gross to receive the influence of those mysterious
+motions that beget sound. Sometimes I felt sure, from the way the few
+figures of which I got such transitory glimpses passed me, or glided
+into vacancy before me, that they were moving to the law of music; and,
+in fact, several times I fancied for a moment that I heard a few
+wondrous tones coming I knew not whence. But they did not last 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
+to burst 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 as suddenly, left me faint and longing for more.
+
+Now, on an evening, before I had been a week in the palace, I was
+wandering through 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. It was filled with a subdued crimson light; by
+which I saw that slender pillars of black, 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 a
+fretting of black upon the white, like the network of a skeleton-leaf.
+The floor was black.
+
+Between several pairs of the pillars upon every side, the place of the
+wall behind was occupied by a crimson curtain of thick silk, hanging in
+heavy and rich folds. Behind each of these curtains burned a powerful
+light, and these were the sources of the glow that filled the hall. A
+peculiar delicious odour pervaded the place. As soon as I entered, the
+old inspiration seemed to return to me, for I felt a strong impulse to
+sing; or rather, it seemed as if some one else 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 the red light and the
+perfume, as well as by the emotion within me, and seeing at one 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, gave
+myself up to a succession of images of bewildering beauty, which passed
+before my 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 had paled away, and felt a cool gentle breath
+gliding over my forehead. I rose and left the hall with unsteady steps,
+finding my way with some difficulty to my own 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 in the chair and dreamed deliciously, and sometimes
+walked up and down over the black floor. Sometimes I acted within
+myself a whole drama, during one of these perambulations; sometimes
+walked deliberately through the whole epic of a tale; sometimes
+ventured to sing a song, though with a shrinking fear of I knew not
+what. I was astonished at the beauty of my own voice as it rang through
+the place, or rather crept undulating, like a serpent of sound, along
+the walls and roof of this superb music-hall. Entrancing verses arose
+within me as of their own accord, chanting themselves to their own
+melodies, and requiring no addition of music to satisfy the inward
+sense. But, ever in the pauses of these, when the singing mood was upon
+me, I seemed to hear something like the distant sound of multitudes of
+dancers, and felt as if it was the unheard music, moving their rhythmic
+motion, that within me blossomed in verse and song. I felt, too, that
+could I but see the dance, I should, from the harmony of complicated
+movements, not of the dancers in relation to each other merely, but of
+each dancer individually in the manifested plastic power that moved the
+consenting harmonious form, understand the whole of the music on the
+billows of which they floated and swung.
+
+At length, one night, suddenly, when this feeling of dancing came upon
+me, I bethought 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 least remove a step further the bewilderment of the
+present one. Nor was I altogether disappointed. I walked to one of the
+magnificent draperies, lifted a corner, and peeped in. There, burned a
+great, crimson, globe-shaped light, high in the cubical centre of
+another hall, which might be larger or less than that in which I stood,
+for its dimensions were not easily perceived, seeing that floor and
+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 white marble statues, of every form, and in
+multitudinous posture, filling the hall throughout. These stood, in the
+ruddy glow of the great lamp, upon pedestals of jet black. Around the
+lamp shone in golden letters, plainly legible from where I stood, the
+two words—
+
+TOUCH NOT!
+
+
+There was in all this, however, no solution to the sound of dancing;
+and now I was aware that the influence on my mind had ceased. I did not
+go in that evening, for I was weary and faint, but I hoarded up the
+expectation of entering, as of a great coming joy.
+
+Next night I walked, as on the preceding, through the hall. My mind was
+filled with pictures and songs, and therewith so much absorbed, that I
+did not for some time think of looking within the curtain I had last
+night lifted. When the thought of doing so occurred to me first, I
+happened to be within a few yards of it. I became conscious, at the
+same moment, that the sound of dancing had been for some time in my
+ears. I approached the curtain quickly, and, lifting it, entered the
+black hall. Everything was still as death. I should have concluded that
+the sound must have proceeded from some other more distant quarter,
+which conclusion its faintness would, in ordinary circumstances, have
+necessitated from the first; but there was a something about the
+statues that caused me still to remain in doubt. As I said, each stood
+perfectly still upon its 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 altogether of the marbly stillness of
+thousands of years. It was as if the peculiar atmosphere of each had
+yet a kind of invisible tremulousness; as if its agitated wavelets had
+not yet subsided into a perfect calm. I had the suspicion that they had
+anticipated my appearance, and had sprung, each, from the living joy 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
+opposite the one I had lifted, and, entering there, found all the
+appearances similar; only that the statues were different, and
+differently grouped. Neither did they produce on my mind that
+impression—of motion just expired, which I had experienced from the
+others. I found that behind every one of the crimson curtains was a
+similar hall, similarly lighted, and similarly occupied.
+
+The next night, I did not allow my thoughts to be absorbed as before
+with inward images, but crept stealthily along to the furthest curtain
+in the hall, from behind which, likewise, I had formerly seemed to hear
+the sound of dancing. I drew aside its edge as suddenly as I could,
+and, looking in, saw that the utmost stillness pervaded the vast place.
+I walked in, and passed through it to the other end.
+
+There I found that it communicated with a circular corridor, divided
+from it only by two rows of red columns. This corridor, which was
+black, with red niches holding statues, ran entirely about the
+statue-halls, forming a communication between the further ends of them
+all; further, that is, as regards the central hall of white whence they
+all diverged like radii, finding their circumference in the corridor.
+
+Round this corridor I now went, entering all the halls, of which there
+were twelve, and finding them all similarly constructed, but filled
+with quite various statues, of what seemed both ancient and modern
+sculpture. After I had simply 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
+was suddenly seized with the desire to enter, and darted in. This time
+I was too quick for them. All the statues were in motion, statues no
+longer, but men and women—all shapes of beauty that ever sprang from
+the brain of the sculptor, mingled in the convolutions of a complicated
+dance. Passing through them to the further end, I almost started from
+my sleep on beholding, not taking part in the dance with the others,
+nor seemingly endued with life like them, but standing in marble
+coldness and rigidity upon a black pedestal in the extreme left
+corner—my lady of the cave; the marble beauty who sprang from her tomb
+or her cradle at the call of my songs. While I gazed in speechless
+astonishment and admiration, a dark shadow, descending from above like
+the curtain of a stage, gradually hid her entirely from my view. I felt
+with a shudder that this shadow was perchance my missing demon, whom I
+had not seen for days. I awoke with a stifled cry.
+
+Of course, the next evening I began my journey through the halls (for I
+knew not to which my dream had carried me), in the hope of proving the
+dream to be a true 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 seen dancing in my dream; and to my
+bewilderment, when I arrived at the extreme corner on the left, there
+stood, the only one I had yet seen, a vacant pedestal. It was exactly
+in the position occupied, in my dream, by the pedestal on which the
+white lady stood. Hope beat violently in my heart.
+
+“Now,” said I to myself, “if yet another part of the dream would but
+come true, and I should succeed in surprising these forms in their
+nightly dance; it might be the rest would follow, and I should see on
+the pedestal my marble queen. Then surely if my songs sufficed to give
+her life before, when she lay in the bonds of alabaster, much more
+would they be sufficient then to give her volition and motion, when she
+alone of assembled crowds of marble forms, would be standing rigid and
+cold.”
+
+But the difficulty was, to surprise the dancers. I had found that a
+premeditated attempt at surprise, though executed with the utmost care
+and rapidity, was of no avail. And, in my dream, it was effected by a
+sudden thought suddenly executed. I saw, therefore, that there was no
+plan of operation offering any probability of success, but this: to
+allow my mind to be occupied with other thoughts, as I wandered around
+the great centre-hall; and so wait till the impulse to enter one of the
+others should happen to arise in me just at the moment when I was close
+to one of the crimson curtains. For I hoped that if I entered any one
+of the twelve halls at the right moment, that would as it were give me
+the right of entrance to all the others, seeing they all had
+communication behind. I would not diminish the hope of the right
+chance, by supposing it necessary that a desire to enter should awake
+within me, 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
+crowded imagery that kept passing through my mind, that they formed too
+nearly a continuous chain, for the hope that any one of them would
+succeed as a surprise. But as I persisted in banishing them, they
+recurred less and less often; and after two or three, at considerable
+intervals, had come when the spot where I happened to be was
+unsuitable, the hope strengthened, that soon one might arise just at
+the right moment; namely, when, in walking round the hall, I should be
+close to one of the curtains.
+
+At length the right moment and the impulse coincided. I darted into the
+ninth hall. It was full of the most exquisite moving forms. The whole
+space wavered and swam with the involutions of an intricate dance. It
+seemed to break suddenly as I entered, and all made one or two bounds
+towards their pedestals; but, apparently on finding that they were
+thoroughly overtaken, they returned to 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 what haste I could
+towards the bottom of the hall; whence, entering the corridor, I turned
+towards the tenth. I soon arrived at the corner I wanted to reach, for
+the corridor was comparatively empty; but, although the dancers here,
+after a little confusion, altogether disregarded my presence, I was
+dismayed at beholding, even yet, a vacant pedestal. But I had a
+conviction that she was near me. And as I looked at the pedestal, I
+thought I saw upon it, vaguely revealed as if through overlapping folds
+of drapery, the indistinct outlines of white feet. Yet there was no
+sign of drapery or concealing shadow whatever. But I remembered the
+descending shadow in my dream. And I hoped still in the power of my
+songs; thinking that what could dispel alabaster, might likewise be
+capable of dispelling what concealed my beauty now, even if it were the
+demon whose darkness had overshadowed all my life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+“_Alexander_. ‘When will you finish Campaspe?’
+_Apelles_. ‘Never finish: for always in absolute beauty there is
+somewhat above art.’”
+          LYLY’S _Campaspe_.
+
+
+And now, what song should I sing to unveil my Isis, if indeed she was
+present unseen? I hurried away to the white hall of Phantasy, heedless
+of the innumerable forms of beauty that crowded my way: these might
+cross my eyes, but the unseen filled my brain. I wandered long, up and
+down the silent space: no songs came. My soul was not still enough for
+songs. Only in the silence and darkness of the soul’s night, do those
+stars of the inward firmament sink to its lower surface from the
+singing realms beyond, and shine upon the conscious spirit. Here all
+effort was unavailing. If they came not, they could not be found.
+
+Next night, it was just the same. I walked through the red glimmer of
+the silent hall; but lonely as there I walked, as lonely trod my soul
+up and down the halls of the brain. At last I entered one of the
+statue-halls. The dance had just commenced, and I was delighted to find
+that I was free of their assembly. I walked on till I came to the
+sacred corner. There I found the pedestal just as I had left it, with
+the faint glimmer as of white feet still resting on the dead black. As
+soon as I saw it, I seemed to feel a presence which longed to become
+visible; and, as it were, called to me to gift it with
+self-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 the hall, the dancers started; the quick interweaving crowd
+shook, lost its form, divided; each figure sprang to its pedestal, and
+stood, a self-evolving life no more, but a rigid, life-like, marble
+shape, with the whole form composed into the expression of a single
+state or act. Silence rolled like a spiritual thunder through the grand
+space. My song had ceased, scared at its own influences. But I saw in
+the hand of one of the statues close by me, a harp whose chords yet
+quivered. I remembered that as she bounded past me, her harp had
+brushed against my arm; so the spell of the marble had not infolded it.
+I sprang to her, and with a gesture of entreaty, laid my hand on the
+harp. The marble hand, probably from its contact with the uncharmed
+harp, had strength enough to relax its hold, and yield the harp to me.
+No other motion indicated life. Instinctively I struck the chords and
+sang. And not to break upon the record of my song, I mention here, that
+as I sang the first four lines, the loveliest feet became clear upon
+the black pedestal; and ever as I sang, it was as 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 by
+infinitesimal degrees of added height. And, while I sang, I did not
+feel that I stood by a statue, as indeed it appeared to be, but that a
+real woman-soul was revealing itself by successive stages of
+imbodiment, and consequent manifestatlon 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 which my feeble song attempted to re-imbody.
+
+The wonder is, that I was not altogether overcome, but was able to
+complete my song as the unseen veil continued to rise. This ability
+came solely from the state of mental elevation in which I found myself.
+Only because uplifted in song, was I able to endure the blaze of the
+dawn. But I cannot tell whether she looked more of statue or more of
+woman; she seemed removed into that region of phantasy where all is
+intensely vivid, but nothing clearly defined. At last, as I sang of her
+descending hair, the glow of soul faded away, like a dying sunset. A
+lamp within had been extinguished, and the house of life shone blank in
+a winter morn. She was a statue once more—but visible, and that was
+much gained. Yet the revulsion from hope and fruition was such, that,
+unable to restrain 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 visible Death, and lifted her from the pedestal down to my
+heart. But no sooner had her feet ceased to be in contact with the
+black pedestal, than she shuddered and trembled all over; then,
+writhing from my arms, before I could tighten their hold, she sprang
+into the corridor, with the reproachful cry, “You should not have
+touched me!” darted behind one of the exterior pillars of the circle,
+and disappeared. I followed almost as fast; but ere I could reach the
+pillar, the sound of a closing door, the saddest of all sounds
+sometimes, fell on my ear; and, arriving at the spot where she had
+vanished, I saw, lighted by a pale yellow lamp which hung above it, a
+heavy, rough door, altogether unlike any others I had seen in the
+palace; for they were all of ebony, or ivory, or covered with
+silver-plates, or of some odorous wood, and very ornate; whereas this
+seemed of old oak, with heavy nails and iron studs. Notwithstanding the
+precipitation of my pursuit, I could not help reading, in silver
+letters beneath the lamp: “_No one enters here without the leave of the
+Queen_.” 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
+windy hill. Great stones like tombstones stood all about me. No door,
+no palace was to 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!” and disappeared behind one of the stones. I followed. A
+cold gust of wind met me from behind the stone; and when I looked, I
+saw nothing but a great hole in the earth, into which I could find no
+way of entering. Had she fallen in? I could not tell. I must wait for
+the daylight. I sat down and wept, for there was no help.
+
+
+
+
+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
+it little of consolation. With the first visible increase of light, I
+gazed into the chasm, but could not, for more than an hour, see
+sufficiently well to discover its nature. At last I saw it was almost a
+perpendicular opening, like a roughly excavated well, only very large.
+I could perceive no bottom; and it was not till the sun actually rose,
+that I discovered a sort of natural staircase, in many parts little
+more than suggested, which led round and round the gulf, descending
+spirally into its abyss. I saw at once that this was my path; and
+without a moment’s hesitation, glad to quit the sunlight, which stared
+at me most heartlessly, I commenced my tortuous descent. It was very
+difficult. 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; which being broad in this particular portion, and standing
+out from the wall at right angles, 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 which entered the rock
+horizontally. Into this I crept, and, having entered, had just room 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;
+although the sun must by this time have been high in the heavens.
+Looking below, I saw that the sides of the shaft went sheer down,
+smooth as glass; and far beneath me, I saw the reflection of the same
+stars I had seen in the heavens when I looked up. I turned again, and
+crept inwards some distance, when the passage widened, and I was at
+length able to stand and walk upright. Wider and loftier grew 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, in
+which the sky was of rock, and instead of trees and flowers, there were
+only fantastic rocks and stones. And ever as I went, darker grew my
+thoughts, till at last I had no hope whatever of finding the white
+lady: I no longer called her to myself _my_ white lady. Whenever a
+choice was necessary, I always chose the path which seemed to lead
+downwards.
+
+At length I began to find that these regions were inhabited. From
+behind a rock a 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 and ridiculous features, just such as those
+described, in German histories and travels, as Kobolds. “What do you
+want with me?” I said. He pointed at me with a long forefinger, very
+thick at the root, and sharpened to a point, and answered, “He! he! he!
+what do _you_ want here?” Then, changing his tone, he continued, with
+mock humility—“Honoured sir, vouchsafe to withdraw from thy slaves the
+lustre of thy august presence, for thy slaves cannot support its
+brightness.” A second appeared, and struck in: “You are so big, you
+keep the sun from us. We can’t see for you, and we’re so cold.”
+Thereupon arose, on all sides, the most terrific uproar of laughter,
+from voices like those of children in volume, but scrannel and harsh as
+those of decrepit age, though, unfortunately, without its weakness. The
+whole pandemonium of fairy devils, of all varieties of fantastic
+ugliness, 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 of talk among themselves, in a language unknown to me, and
+after seemingly endless gesticulation, consultation, elbow-nudging, and
+unmitigated peals of laughter, they formed into a circle about one of
+their number, who scrambled upon a stone, and, much to my surprise, and
+somewhat to my dismay, began to sing, in a voice 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. He sang the same
+air too; and, all the time, maintained a face of mock entreaty and
+worship; accompanying the song with the travestied gestures of one
+playing on the lute. The whole assembly kept silence, except at the
+close of every verse, when they roared, and danced, and shouted with
+laughter, and flung themselves on the ground, in real or pretended
+convulsions of delight. When he had finished, the singer threw himself
+from the top of the stone, turning heels over head several times in his
+descent; and when he did alight, it was on the top of his head, on
+which he hopped about, making the most grotesque gesticulations with
+his legs in the air. Inexpressible laughter followed, which broke up in
+a shower of tiny stones from innumerable hands. They could not
+materially injure me, although they cut me on the head and face. I
+attempted to run away, but they all rushed upon me, and, laying hold of
+every part that afforded a grasp, held me tight. Crowding about me like
+bees, they shouted an insect-swarm of exasperating speeches up into my
+face, among which the most frequently recurring were—“You shan’t have
+her; you shan’t have her; he! he! he! She’s for a better man; how he’ll
+kiss her! how he’ll kiss her!”
+
+The galvanic torrent of this battery of malevolence stung to life
+within me a spark of nobleness, and I said aloud, “Well, if he is a
+better man, let him have her.”
+
+They instantly let go their hold of me, and fell back a step or two,
+with a whole broadside of grunts and humphs, as of unexpected and
+disappointed approbation. I made a step or two forward, and a lane was
+instantly opened for me through the midst of the grinning little
+antics, who bowed most politely to me on every side as I passed. After
+I had gone a few yards, I looked back, and saw them all standing quite
+still, looking after me, like a great school of boys; till suddenly one
+turned round, and with a loud whoop, rushed into the midst of the
+others. In an instant, the whole was one writhing and tumbling heap of
+contortion, reminding me of the live pyramids of intertwined snakes of
+which travellers make report. As soon as one was worked out of the
+mass, he bounded off a few paces, and then, with a somersault and a
+run, threw himself gyrating into the air, and descended with all his
+weight on the summit of the heaving and struggling chaos of fantastic
+figures. I left them still busy at this 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, while it sank sadly within me, as if I was once more walking up
+and down the white hall 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 little elderly woman, much taller, however, than the goblins I had
+just left, seated upon a stone by the side of the path. She rose, as I
+drew near, and came forward 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 a pity you haven’t a pretty girl to walk all alone with you
+through this sweet country? How different everything would look?
+wouldn’t it? Strange that one can never have what one would like best!
+How the roses would bloom and all that, even in this infernal hole!
+wouldn’t they, Anodos? Her eyes would 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; “look here.”
+
+I had turned to go away as I gave my reply, but now I stopped and
+looked at her. As a rough unsightly bud might suddenly blossom into the
+most lovely flower; or rather, as a sunbeam bursts through a shapeless
+cloud, and transfigures the earth; so burst a face of resplendent
+beauty, as it were _through_ the unsightly visage of the woman,
+destroying it with light as it dawned through it. A summer sky rose
+above me, gray with heat; across a shining slumberous landscape, looked
+from afar the peaks of snow-capped mountains; and down from a great
+rock beside me fell a sheet of water mad with its own delight.
+
+“Stay with me,” she said, lifting up her exquisite face, and looking
+full in mine.
+
+I drew back. Again the infernal laugh grated upon my ears; again the
+rocks closed in around me, and the ugly woman looked at me with wicked,
+mocking hazel eyes.
+
+“You shall have your reward,” said she. “You shall see your white 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 path and a few yards on every side of me, I never could find out the
+source of this sad 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.”
+          JEAN PAUL, _Hesperus_.
+
+
+How I got through this dreary part of my travels, I do not know. I do
+not think I was upheld by the hope that any moment the light might
+break in upon me; for I scarcely thought about that. I went on with a
+dull endurance, varied by moments of uncontrollable sadness; for more
+and more the conviction grew upon me that I should never see the white
+lady again. It may seem strange that one with whom I had held so little
+communion should have so engrossed my thoughts; but benefits conferred
+awaken love in some minds, as surely as benefits received in others.
+Besides being delighted and proud that _my_ songs had called the
+beautiful creature to life, the same fact caused me to feel a
+tenderness unspeakable for her, accompanied with a kind of feeling of
+property in her; for so the goblin Selfishness would reward the angel
+Love. When to all this is added, an overpowering sense of her beauty,
+and an unquestioning conviction that this was a true index to inward
+loveliness, it may be understood how it came to pass that my
+imagination filled my whole soul with the play of its own multitudinous
+colours and harmonies around the form which yet stood, a gracious
+marble radiance, in the midst of _its_ white hall of phantasy. The time
+passed by unheeded; for my thoughts were busy. Perhaps this was also in
+part the cause of my needing no food, and never thinking how I should
+find any, during this subterraneous part of my travels. How long they
+endured I could not tell, for I had no means of measuring time; and
+when I looked back, there was such a discrepancy between the decisions
+of my imagination and my judgment, as to the length of time that had
+passed, that I was bewildered, and gave up all attempts to arrive at
+any conclusion on the point.
+
+A gray mist continually gathered behind me. When I looked back towards
+the past, this mist was the medium through which my eyes had to strain
+for a vision of what had gone by; and the form of the white lady had
+receded into an unknown region. At length the country of rock began to
+close again around me, gradually and slowly narrowing, till I found
+myself walking in a gallery of rock once more, both sides of which I
+could touch with my outstretched hands. It narrowed yet, until I was
+forced to move carefully, in order to avoid striking against the
+projecting pieces of rock. The roof sank lower and lower, until I was
+compelled, first to stoop, and then to creep on my hands and knees. It
+recalled terrible dreams of childhood; but I was not much afraid,
+because I felt sure that this was my path, and my only hope of leaving
+Fairy Land, of which I was now almost weary.
+
+At length, on getting past an abrupt turn in the passage, through which
+I had to force myself, I saw, a few yards ahead of me, the
+long-forgotten daylight shining through a small opening, to which the
+path, if path it could now be called, led me. With great difficulty I
+accomplished these last few yards, and came forth to the day. I stood
+on the shore of a wintry sea, with a wintry sun just a few feet above
+its horizon-edge. It was bare, and waste, and gray. Hundreds of
+hopeless waves rushed constantly shorewards, falling exhausted upon a
+beach of great loose stones, that seemed to stretch miles and miles in
+both directions. There was nothing for the eye but mingling shades of
+gray; nothing for the ear but the rush of the coming, the roar of the
+breaking, and the moan of the retreating wave. No rock lifted up a
+sheltering severity above the dreariness around; even that from which I
+had myself emerged rose scarcely a foot above the opening by which I
+had reached the dismal day, more dismal even than 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 was nowhere visible.
+I wandered over the stones, up and down the beach, a human imbodiment
+of the nature around me. The wind increased; its keen waves flowed
+through my soul; the foam rushed higher up the stones; a few dead stars
+began to gleam in the east; the sound of the waves grew louder and yet
+more despairing. A dark curtain of cloud was lifted up, and a pale blue
+rent shone between its foot and the edge of the sea, out from which
+rushed an icy storm of frozen wind, that tore the waters into spray as
+it passed, and flung the billows 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 it half-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
+particular interest, that on one part of the shore a low platform of
+rock seemed to run out far into the midst of the breaking waters.
+
+Towards this I now went, scrambling over smooth stones, to which scarce
+even a particle of sea-weed clung; and having found it, I got on it,
+and followed its direction, as near as I could guess, out into the
+tumbling chaos. I could hardly keep my feet against the wind and sea.
+The waves repeatedly all but swept me off my path; but I kept on my
+way, till I reached the end of the low promontory, which, in the fall
+of the waves, rose a good many feet above the surface, and, in their
+rise, was covered with their waters. I stood one moment and gazed into
+the heaving abyss beneath me; then plunged headlong into the mounting
+wave below. A blessing, like the kiss of a mother, seemed to alight on
+my soul; a calm, deeper than that which accompanies a hope deferred,
+bathed my spirit. I sank far into the waters, and sought not to return.
+I felt as if once more the great arms of the beech-tree were around me,
+soothing me after the miseries I had passed through, and telling me,
+like a little sick child, that I should be better to-morrow. The waters
+of themselves lifted me, as with loving arms, to the surface. I
+breathed again, but did not unclose my eyes. I would not look on the
+wintry sea, and the pitiless gray sky. Thus I floated, till something
+gently touched me. It was a little boat floating beside me. How it came
+there I could not tell; but it rose and sank on the waters, and kept
+touching me in its fall, as if with a human will to let me know that
+help was by me. It was a little gay-coloured boat, seemingly covered
+with glistering scales like those of a fish, all of brilliant rainbow
+hues. I scrambled into it, 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, lying still, knew, by the sound of the waters, that my little bark
+was fleeting rapidly onwards. Finding, however, none of that stormy
+motion which the sea had manifested when I beheld it from the shore, I
+opened my eyes; and, looking first 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 last border of a southern
+twilight. The aureole of the sun yet shot the extreme faint tips of its
+longest rays above the horizon-waves, and withdrew them not. It was a
+perpetual twilight. The stars, great and earnest, like children’s eyes,
+bent down lovingly towards the waters; and the reflected stars within
+seemed to float up, as if longing to meet their embraces. But when I
+looked down, a new wonder met my view. For, vaguely revealed beneath
+the wave, I floated above my whole Past. The fields of my childhood
+flitted by; the halls 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 for rest. But so indistinct were the
+visions, that sometimes I thought I was sailing on a shallow sea, and
+that strange rocks and forests of sea-plants beguiled 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 to
+lie close beneath me in sleep; and the eyelids would tremble as if
+about to forsake the conscious eye; and the arms would heave upwards,
+as if in dreams they sought for a satisfying presence. But these
+motions might come only from the heaving of the waters between those
+forms and me. Soon I fell asleep, overcome with fatigue and delight. In
+dreams of unspeakable joy—of restored friendships; of revived embraces;
+of love which said it had never died; of faces that had vanished long
+ago, yet said with smiling lips that they knew nothing of the grave; of
+pardons implored, and granted with such bursting floods of love, that I
+was almost glad I had sinned—thus I passed through this wondrous
+twilight. I awoke with the feeling that I had been kissed and loved to
+my heart’s content; and found that my boat was floating motionless 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 a soft grassy turf. The island seemed rich with a profusion of all
+grasses and low flowers. All delicate lowly things were most plentiful;
+but no trees rose skywards, not even a bush overtopped the tall
+grasses, except in one place near the cottage I am about to describe,
+where a few plants of the gum-cistus, which drops every night all the
+blossoms that the day brings forth, formed a kind of natural arbour.
+The whole island lay open to the sky and sea. It rose nowhere more than
+a few feet above the level of the waters, which flowed deep all around
+its border. Here there seemed to be neither tide nor storm. A sense of
+persistent 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 bank of the island, for shore it could hardly be called, being so
+much more like the edge 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 childhood looked at me with perfect child-eyes
+out of the grass. My heart, softened by the dreams through which it had
+passed, overflowed in a sad, tender love towards them. They looked to
+me like children impregnably fortified in a helpless confidence. The
+sun stood half-way down the western sky, shining very soft and golden;
+and there grew a second world of shadows amidst the world of grasses
+and wild flowers.
+
+The cottage was square, with low walls, and a high pyramidal roof
+thatched with long reeds, of which the withered blossoms hung over all
+the eaves. It is noticeable that most of the buildings I saw in Fairy
+Land were cottages. There was no path to a door, nor, indeed, was there
+any track worn by footsteps in the island.
+
+The cottage rose right out of the smooth turf. It had no windows that I
+could see; but there was a door in the centre of the side facing me, up
+to which I went. I knocked, and the sweetest voice I had ever heard
+said, “Come in.” I entered. A bright fire was burning on a hearth in
+the centre of the earthern floor, and the smoke found its way out at an
+opening in the centre of the pyramidal roof. Over the fire hung a
+little pot, and over the pot bent a woman-face, the most wonderful, I
+thought, that I had ever beheld. For it was older than any countenance
+I had ever looked upon. There was not a spot in which a wrinkle could
+lie, where a wrinkle lay not. And the skin was ancient and brown, like
+old parchment. The woman’s form was tall and spare: and when she stood
+up to welcome me, I saw that she was straight as an arrow. Could that
+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 her eyes, I no longer wondered at her voice: they were
+absolutely young—those of a woman of five-and-twenty, large, and of a
+clear gray. Wrinkles had beset them all about; the eyelids themselves
+were old, and heavy, and worn; but the eyes were very incarnations of
+soft light. She held out her hand to me, and the voice of sweetness
+again greeted me, with the single word, “Welcome.” She set an old
+wooden chair for me, near the fire, and went on with her cooking. A
+wondrous sense of refuge and repose came upon me. I felt like a boy who
+has got home from school, miles across the hills, through a heavy storm
+of wind and snow. Almost, as I gazed on her, I sprang from my seat to
+kiss those old lips. And when, having finished her cooking, she brought
+some of the dish she had prepared, and set it on a little table by me,
+covered with a snow-white cloth, I could not help laying my head on her
+bosom, and bursting into happy tears. She put her arms round me,
+saying, “Poor child; poor child!”
+
+As I continued to weep, she gently disengaged herself, and, taking a
+spoon, put some of the food (I did not know what it was) to my lips,
+entreating me most endearingly to swallow it. To please her, I made an
+effort, and succeeded. She went on feeding me like a baby, with one arm
+round me, till I looked up in her face and smiled: then she gave me the
+spoon and told me to eat, for it would do me good. I obeyed her, and
+found myself wonderfully refreshed. Then she drew near the fire an
+old-fashioned couch that was in the cottage, and making me lie down
+upon it, sat at my feet, and began to sing. Amazing store of old
+ballads rippled from her lips, over the pebbles of ancient tunes; and
+the voice that sang was sweet as the voice of a tuneful maiden that
+singeth ever from very fulness 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 my being able to remember it better than most of the others. While
+she sung, I was in Elysium, with the sense of a rich soul upholding,
+embracing, and overhanging mine, full of all plenty and bounty. I felt
+as if she could give me everything I wanted; as if I should never wish
+to leave her, but would be content to be sung to and fed by her, day
+after day, as years rolled by. At last I fell asleep while she sang.
+
+When I awoke, I knew not whether it was night or day. The fire had sunk
+to a few red embers, which just gave light enough to show me the woman
+standing a few feet from me, with her back towards me, facing the door
+by which I had entered. She was weeping, but very gently and
+plentifully. The tears seemed to come freely from her heart. Thus she
+stood for a few minutes; then, slowly turning at right angles to her
+former position, she faced another of the four sides of the cottage. I
+now observed, for the first time, that here was a door likewise; and
+that, indeed, there was one in the centre of every side of the cottage.
+
+When she looked towards the second door, her tears ceased to flow, but
+sighs took their place. She often closed her eyes as she stood; and
+every time she closed her eyes, a gentle sigh seemed to be born in her
+heart, and to escape at her lips. But when her eyes were open, her
+sighs were deep and very sad, and shook her whole frame. Then she
+turned towards the third door, and a cry as of fear or suppressed pain
+broke from her; but she seemed to hearten herself against the dismay,
+and to front it steadily; for, although I often heard a slight cry, and
+sometimes a moan, yet she never moved or bent her head, and I felt sure
+that her eyes never closed. Then she turned to the fourth door, and I
+saw her shudder, and then stand still as a statue; till at last she
+turned towards me and approached the fire. I saw that her face was
+white as death. But she 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 her wheel near her, and began to spin.
+While she spun, she murmured a low strange song, to which the hum of
+the wheel made a kind of infinite symphony. At length she paused in her
+spinning and singing, and glanced towards me, like a mother who looks
+whether or not her child gives signs of waking. She smiled when she saw
+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
+island awoke within me. I rose, and saying that I wished to look about
+me, went towards the door by which I had entered.
+
+“Stay a moment,” said my hostess, with some trepidation in her voice.
+“Listen to me. You will not see what you expect when you go out of that
+door. Only remember this: whenever you wish to come back to me, enter
+wherever you see this mark.”
+
+She held up her left hand between me and the fire. Upon the palm, which
+appeared 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;
+and bewildered me too, seeing I was only going out for a little ramble
+in an island, which I did not believe larger than could easily be
+compassed in a few hours’ walk at most. As I went she resumed her
+spinning.
+
+I opened the door, and stepped out. The moment my foot touched the
+smooth sward, I seemed to issue from the door of an old barn on my
+father’s estate, 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 little distance in the field, I saw two of my brothers at
+play. The moment they caught sight of me, they called out to me to come
+and join them, which I did; and we played together as we had done years
+ago, till the red sun went down in the west, and the gray fog began to
+rise from the river. Then we went home together with a strange
+happiness. As we went, we heard the continually renewed larum of a
+landrail in the long grass. One of my brothers and I separated to a
+little distance, and each commenced running towards the part whence the
+sound appeared to come, in the hope of approaching the spot where the
+bird was, and so getting at least a sight of it, if we should not be
+able to capture the little creature. My father’s voice recalled us from
+trampling down the rich long grass, soon to be cut down and laid aside
+for the winter. I had quite forgotten all 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
+arose between 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 missed him. 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, a strange conviction flashed across my
+mind, that I had gone through the very same once before.
+
+I rushed out of the house, I knew not why, sobbing and crying bitterly.
+I ran through the fields in aimless distress, till, passing the old
+barn, I caught sight of a red mark on the door. The merest trifles
+sometimes rivet the attention 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 seen before. As I looked at it, I thought I
+would go in and lie down amongst the straw, 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 her spinning-wheel.
+
+“I did not expect you quite so soon,” she said, as I shut the door
+behind me. I went up to the couch, and threw myself on it with that
+fatigue wherewith 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, and sprang 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 saw that my form had no place within its depths, so I feared not
+that I should be seen. The lady wonderfully resembled my marble lady,
+but was altogether of the daughters 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 court without. It ceased, and the clang of armour told that his
+rider alighted, and the sound of his ringing heels approached the hall.
+The door opened; but the lady waited, for she would meet her lord
+alone. He strode in: she flew like a home-bound dove into his arms, and
+nestled on the hard steel. It was the knight of the soiled armour. But
+now the armour shone like polished glass; and strange to tell, though
+the mirror reflected not my form, I saw a dim shadow of myself in 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 she undid the buckles of his armour; and she toiled under the
+weight of the mail, as she _would_ carry it aside. Then she unclasped
+his greaves, and unbuckled his spurs; and once more she sprang into his
+arms, and laid her head where she could now feel the beating of his
+heart. Then she disengaged herself from his embrace, and, moving back a
+step or two, gazed at him. He stood there a mighty form, crowned with a
+noble head, where all sadness had disappeared, or had been absorbed in
+solemn purpose. Yet I suppose that he looked more thoughtful than the
+lady had expected to see him, for she did not renew her caresses,
+although his face glowed with love, and the few words he spoke were as
+mighty deeds for strength; but she led him towards the hearth, and
+seated him 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 met twice 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 something
+noble in him, but it was a nobleness of thought, and not of deed. He
+may yet perish of vile fear.”
+
+“Ah!” returned the lady, “you saved him once, and for that I thank you;
+for may I not say that I somewhat loved him? But tell me how you fared,
+when you struck your battle-axe into the ash-tree, and he came and
+found you; for so much of the story you had told me, when the
+beggar-child came and took you away.”
+
+“As soon as I saw him,” rejoined the knight, “I knew that earthly arms
+availed not against such as he; and that my soul must meet him in its
+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 force could not reach. He came nearer and nearer, till
+the ghastly face was close to mine. A shudder as of death ran through
+me; but I think I did not move, for he seemed to quail, and retreated.
+As soon as he gave back, I struck one more sturdy blow on the stem of
+his tree, that the forest rang; and then looked at him again. He
+writhed and grinned with rage and apparent pain, and again approached
+me, but retreated sooner than before. I heeded him no more, but hewed
+with a will at the tree, till the trunk creaked, and the head bowed,
+and with a crash it fell to the earth. Then I looked up from my labour,
+and lo! the spectre had vanished, and I saw him no more; nor ever in my
+wanderings have I heard of him again.”
+
+“Well struck! well withstood! my hero,” said the lady.
+
+“But,” said the knight, somewhat troubled, “dost thou love the youth
+still?”
+
+“Ah!” she replied, “how can I help it? He woke me from worse than
+death; he loved me. I had never been for thee, if he had not sought me
+first. But I love him not as I love thee. He was but the moon of my
+night; thou art 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 not
+restrain my words:
+
+“Let me, then, be the moon of thy night still, O woman! And when thy
+day is 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 mournful hour of uncompleted birth, which yet was
+beautiful in its time.”
+
+They sat silent, and I almost thought they were listening. The colour
+of the lady’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 door which closed behind them; but, ere it
+closed, I saw that the room into which it opened was a rich chamber,
+hung with gorgeous arras. I stood with an ocean of sighs frozen in my
+bosom. I could remain no longer. She was near me, and I could not see
+her; near me in the arms of one loved better than I, and I would not
+see her, and I would not be by her. But how to escape from the nearness
+of the best beloved? I had not this time forgotten the mark; for the
+fact that I could not enter the sphere of these living beings kept me
+aware that, for me, I moved 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 the dull red cipher glowed, on the
+very door of their secret chamber. Struck with agony, I dashed it open,
+and fell at the feet of the ancient woman, who still spun on, the whole
+dissolved ocean of my sighs bursting from me in a storm of tearless
+sobs. Whether I fainted or slept, I do not know; but, as I returned to
+consciousness, before I seemed to have power to move, I heard the woman
+singing, 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! I came forth upon a crowded street, where men and women went to
+and fro in multitudes. I knew it well; and, turning to one hand, walked
+sadly along the pavement. Suddenly I saw approaching me, a little way
+off, a form well known to me (_well-known!_—alas, how weak the word!)
+in the years when I thought my boyhood was left behind, and shortly
+before I entered the realm of Fairy Land. Wrong and Sorrow had gone
+together, hand-in-hand as it is well they do.
+
+Unchangeably dear was that face. It lay in my heart as a child lies in
+its own white bed; but I could not meet her.
+
+“Anything but that,” I said, and, turning aside, sprang up the steps to
+a door, on which I fancied I saw the mystic sign. I entered—not the
+mysterious cottage, but her home. I rushed wildly on, and stood by the
+door of her room.
+
+“She is out,” I said, “I will see the old room once more.”
+
+I opened the door gently, and stood in a great solemn church. A
+deep-toned bell, whose sounds throbbed and echoed and swam through the
+empty building, struck the hour of midnight. The moon shone through the
+windows of the clerestory, and enough of the ghostly radiance was
+diffused through the church to let me see, walking with a stately, yet
+somewhat trailing and stumbling step, down the opposite aisle, for I
+stood in one of the transepts, a figure dressed in a white robe,
+whether for the night, or for that longer night which lies too deep for
+the day, I could not tell. Was it she? and was this her chamber? I
+crossed the church, and followed. The figure stopped, seemed to ascend
+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 all bare. They were cold—they were marble, but I knew them.
+It grew dark. I turned to retrace my steps, but found, ere long, that I
+had wandered into what seemed a little chapel. I groped about, seeking
+the door. Everything I touched belonged to the dead. My hands fell on
+the cold effigy of a knight who lay with his legs crossed and his sword
+broken beside him. He lay in his noble rest, and I lived on in ignoble
+strife. I felt for the left hand and a certain finger; I found there
+the ring I knew: he was one of my own ancestors. I was in the chapel
+over the burial-vault of my race. I called aloud: “If any of the dead
+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 the dead, and see no light.” A warm kiss alighted on my lips
+through the dark. And I said, “The dead kiss well; I will not be
+afraid.” And a great hand was reached out of the dark, and grasped mine
+for a moment, mightily and tenderly. I said to myself: “The veil
+between, though very dark, is very thin.”
+
+Groping my way further, I stumbled over the heavy stone that covered
+the entrance 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 have moved the huge slab; but it opened the door of the
+cottage, and I threw myself once more, pale and speechless, on the
+couch beside the ancient dame. She sang once 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 I awoke, I found that my hostess had moved from where she had been
+sitting, and now sat between me and the fourth door.
+
+I guessed that her design was to prevent my entering there. I sprang
+from the couch, and darted past her to the door. I opened it at once
+and went out. All I remember is a cry of distress from the woman:
+“Don’t go there, my child! Don’t go there!” But I was gone.
+
+I knew nothing more; or, if I did, I had forgot it all when I awoke to
+consciousness, lying on the floor of the cottage, with my head in the
+lap of the 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 with withered face and young eyes,
+till her countenance was irradiated with the light 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 able to
+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 so happy in
+my life.”
+
+“But you must go,” she rejoined sadly. “Listen! What do you hear?”
+
+“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 door of
+the Timeless” (and she shuddered as she pointed to the fourth door)—“to
+find you; for if I had not gone, you would never have entered again;
+and because I went, the waters around my cottage will rise and rise,
+and flow and come, till they build a great firmament of waters over my
+dwelling. But as long as I keep my fire burning, they cannot enter. I
+have fuel enough for years; and after one year they will sink away
+again, and be just as they were before you came. I have not been buried
+for a hundred years now.” And she smiled and wept.
+
+“Alas! alas!” I cried. “I have brought this evil on the best and
+kindest of friends, who has filled my heart with great gifts.”
+
+“Do not think of that,” she rejoined. “I can bear it very well. You
+will come back to me some day, I know. But I beg you, for my sake, my
+dear child, to do one thing. In whatever sorrow you may be, however
+inconsolable and irremediable it may appear, believe me that the old
+woman in the cottage, with the young eyes” (and she smiled), “knows
+something, though she must not always tell it, that would quite satisfy
+you about 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
+lead into other regions and other worlds?”
+
+“This is not an island,” she replied; “but is joined to the land by a
+narrow neck; and for the door, I will lead you myself through the right
+one.”
+
+She took my hand, and led me through the third door; whereupon I found
+myself standing 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 must take, 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 help weeping 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 I went.
+
+
+
+
+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’S _Faithful 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
+soaked with the rising waters. But I reached the isthmus in safety. It
+was rocky, and so much higher than the level of the peninsula, that I
+had plenty of time to cross. I saw on each side of me the water rising
+rapidly, altogether without wind, or violent motion, or broken waves,
+but as if a slow strong fire were glowing beneath it. Ascending a steep
+acclivity, I found myself at last in an open, rocky country. After
+travelling for some hours, as nearly in a straight line as I could, I
+arrived at a lonely tower, built on the top of a little hill, which
+overlooked the whole neighbouring country. As I approached, I heard the
+clang of an anvil; and so rapid were the blows, that I despaired of
+making myself heard till a pause in the work should ensue. It was some
+minutes before a cessation took place; but when it did, I knocked
+loudly, and had not long to wait; 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 the forge. In one hand he held
+a sword, so lately from the furnace that it yet shone with a dull fire.
+As soon as he saw me, he threw the door wide open, and standing aside,
+invited me very cordially to enter. I did so; when he shut and bolted
+the door most carefully, and then led the way inwards. He brought me
+into a rude hall, which seemed to occupy almost the whole of the ground
+floor of the little tower, and which I saw was now being used as a
+workshop. A huge fire roared on the hearth, beside which was an anvil.
+By the anvil stood, in similar 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 of perception in such
+meetings, I thought them, at first sight, very unlike; and at the
+second glance, knew that they were brothers. The former, and apparently
+the elder, was muscular and dark, with curling hair, and large hazel
+eyes, which sometimes grew wondrously soft. The second was slender and
+fair, yet with a countenance like an eagle, and an eye which, though
+pale blue, shone with an almost fierce expression. He stood erect, as
+if looking from a lofty mountain crag, over a vast plain outstretched
+below. As soon as we entered the hall, the elder turned to me, and I
+saw that a glow of satisfaction shone on both their faces. To my
+surprise and great pleasure, he addressed me thus:
+
+“Brother, will you sit by the fire and rest, till we finish this part
+of our work?”
+
+I signified my assent; and, resolved to await any disclosure they might
+be inclined to make, seated myself in silence near the hearth.
+
+The elder brother then laid the sword in the fire, covered it well
+over, and when it had attained a sufficient degree of heat, drew it out
+and laid it on the anvil, moving it carefully about, while the younger,
+with a succession of quick smart blows, appeared either to be welding
+it, or hammering one part of it to a consenting shape with the rest.
+Having finished, they laid it carefully in the fire; and, when it was
+very hot indeed, plunged it into a vessel full of some 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 each side of me.
+
+“We are very glad to see you, brother. We have been expecting you for
+some days,” said the dark-haired youth.
+
+“I am proud to be called your brother,” I rejoined; “and you will not
+think I refuse the name, if I desire to know why you honour me with
+it?”
+
+“Ah! then he does not know about it,” said the younger. “We thought you
+had known of the bond betwixt us, and the work we have to do together.
+You must tell him, brother, from the first.”
+
+So the elder began:
+
+“Our father is king of this country. Before we were born, three giant
+brothers had appeared in the land. No one knew exactly when, and no one
+had the least idea whence they came. They took possession of a ruined
+castle that had stood 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 least injury to any one; so that
+they were regarded in the neighbourhood as at least perfectly harmless,
+if not rather benevolent beings. But it began to be observed, that the
+old castle had assumed somehow or other, no one knew when or how, a
+somewhat different look from what it used to have. Not only were
+several breaches in the lower part of the walls built up, but actually
+some of the battlements which yet stood, had been repaired, apparently
+to prevent them from falling 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 no one ever saw them engaged in it.
+The peasants became yet more uneasy, after one, who had concealed
+himself, and watched all night, in the neighbourhood of the castle,
+reported that he had seen, in full moonlight, the three huge giants
+working with might and main, all night long, restoring to their former
+position some massive stones, formerly steps of a grand turnpike stair,
+a great portion of which had long since fallen, along with part of the
+wall of the round tower in which it had been built. This wall they were
+completing, foot by foot, along with 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 was far too much afraid of
+them to interrupt them.
+
+“At length, with the help of a neighbouring quarry, the whole of the
+external wall of the castle was finished. And now the country folks
+were in greater fear than before. But for several years the giants
+remained very peaceful. The reason of this was afterwards supposed to
+be the fact, that they were distantly related to several good people in
+the country; for, as long as these lived, they remained quiet; but as
+soon as they were all dead the real nature of the giants broke out.
+Having completed the outside of their castle, they proceeded, by
+spoiling the country houses around them, to make a quiet luxurious
+provision for their comfort within. Affairs reached such a pass, that
+the news of their robberies came to my father’s ears; but he, alas! was
+so crippled in his resources, by a war he was carrying on with a
+neighbouring prince, that he could only spare a very few men, to
+attempt the capture of their stronghold. Upon these the giants issued
+in the night, and slew every man of them. And now, grown bolder by
+success and impunity, they no longer confined their depredations to
+property, but began to seize the persons of their distinguished
+neighbours, knights and ladies, and hold them in durance, the misery of
+which was heightened by all manner of indignity, until they were
+redeemed by their friends, at an exorbitant ransom. Many knights have
+adventured their overthrow, but to their own instead; for they have all
+been slain, or captured, or forced to make a hasty retreat. To crown
+their enormities, if any man now attempts their destruction, they,
+immediately upon his defeat, put one or more of their captives to a
+shameful death, on a turret in 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 destroy them, dared not, for the
+sake of their captives, risk the adventure, before we should have
+reached at least our earliest manhood. Now, however, we are preparing
+for the attempt; and the grounds of this preparation are these. Having
+only the resolution, and not the experience necessary for the
+undertaking, we went and consulted a lonely woman of wisdom, who lives
+not very far from here, in the direction of the quarter from which you
+have come. She received us most kindly, and gave us what seems to us
+the best of advice. She first inquired what experience we had had in
+arms. We told her we had been well exercised from our boyhood, and for
+some years had kept ourselves in constant practice, with a view to this
+necessity.
+
+“‘But you have not actually fought for life and death?’ said she.
+
+“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 time as 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, you two alone. Receive no visits from man or woman. There forge
+for yourselves every piece of armour that you wish to wear, or to use,
+in your coming encounter. And keep up your exercises. As, however, two
+of you can be no match for the three giants, I will find you, if I can,
+a third brother, who will take on himself the third share of the fight,
+and the preparation. Indeed, I have already seen one who will, I think,
+be the very man for your fellowship, but it will be some time before he
+comes to me. He is wandering now without an aim. I will 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 will
+repay you well, in present song, and in future deeds.’
+
+“She opened the door of a curious old cabinet that stood in the room.
+On the 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 in her chair. Our forms were not reflected. But at the
+feet of the dame lay a young 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 an eagle 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—I was
+wrong.’
+
+“‘Wait a while,’ said the woman; ‘if I mistake not, he will make you
+weep till your tears are dry for ever. Tears are the only cure for
+weeping. And you may have need of the cure, before you go forth to
+fight the 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;
+and we will fight together, and work together, and love each other as
+never three loved before. And you will sing to us, will you not?”
+
+“That I will, when I can,” I answered; “but it is only at times that
+the power of song comes upon me. For that I must wait; but I have a
+feeling that if I work well, song will not be far off to enliven the
+labour.”
+
+This was all the compact made: the brothers required nothing more, and
+I did not 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 my white hands
+beside yours so nobly soiled and hard; but that shame will soon be
+wiped away.”
+
+“No, no; we will not work to-day. Rest is as needful as toil. Bring the
+wine, brother; it is your turn to serve to-day.”
+
+The younger brother soon covered a table with rough viands, but good
+wine; and we ate and drank heartily, beside our work. Before the meal
+was over, I had learned all their story. Each had something in his
+heart which made the conviction, that he would victoriously perish in
+the coming conflict, a real sorrow to him. Otherwise they thought they
+would have lived enough. The causes of their trouble were respectively
+these:
+
+While they wrought with an armourer, in a city famed for workmanship in
+steel and silver, the elder had fallen in love with a lady as far
+beneath him in real rank, as she was above the station he had as
+apprentice to an armourer. Nor did he seek to further his suit by
+discovering himself; but there was simply so much 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 in return. He
+told her when he left her, that he had a perilous adventure before him,
+and that when it was achieved, she would either see him return to claim
+her, or hear that he had died with honour. The younger brother’s grief
+arose 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 one unable to sympathise with it, it would have appeared
+extravagant. Both loved him equally at heart; but the love of the
+younger had been more developed, because his thoughts and anxieties had
+not been otherwise occupied. When at home, he had been his constant
+companion; and, of late, had ministered to the infirmities of his
+growing age. The youth was never weary of listening to the tales of his
+sire’s youthful adventures; and had not yet in the smallest degree 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 some dread, lest the thought of the loneliness of these two
+might occur to them, in the moment when decision was most necessary,
+and disturb, in some degree, the self-possession requisite for the
+success of their attempt. For, as I have said, they were yet untried in
+actual conflict. “Now,” thought I, “I see to what the powers of my gift
+must minister.” For my own part, I did not dread death, for I had
+nothing to care to live for; but I dreaded the encounter because of the
+responsibility connected with it. I resolved 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
+fight and brotherly aid. I would not forge for myself armour of heavy
+mail like theirs, for I was not so powerful as they, and depended more
+for any success I might secure, upon nimbleness of motion, certainty of
+eye, and ready response of hand. Therefore I began to make for myself a
+shirt of steel plates and rings; which work, while more troublesome,
+was better suited to me than the heavier labour. Much assistance did
+the brothers give me, even after, by their instructions, I was able to
+make some progress alone. Their work was in a moment abandoned, to
+render any required aid to mine. As the old woman had promised, I tried
+to repay them with song; and many were the tears they both shed over my
+ballads and dirges. The songs they liked best to hear were two which 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
+what comes 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 after the 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 armed each other, and tested the strength of the defence, with many
+blows of loving force. I was inferior in strength to both my brothers,
+but a little more agile than either; and upon this agility, joined to
+precision in hitting with the point of my weapon, I grounded my hopes
+of success in the ensuing combat. I likewise laboured to develop yet
+more the keenness of sight with which I was naturally gifted; and, from
+the remarks of my companions, I soon learned that my endeavours were
+not in vain.
+
+The morning arrived on which we had determined to make the attempt, and
+succeed or perish—perhaps both. We had resolved to fight on foot;
+knowing that the mishap of many of the knights who had made the
+attempt, had resulted from the fright of their horses at the appearance
+of the giants; and believing with Sir Gawain, that, though mare’s sons
+might be false to us, the earth would never prove a traitor. But most
+of our preparations were, in their immediate aim at least, frustrated.
+
+We rose, that fatal morning, by daybreak. We had rested from all labour
+the day before, and now were fresh as the lark. We bathed in cold
+spring water, and dressed ourselves in clean garments, with a sense of
+preparation, as for a solemn festivity. When we had broken our fast, I
+took an old lyre, which I had found in the tower and had myself
+repaired, and sung for the last time the two ballads of which I have
+said so much already. I followed them with this, for a closing 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 death of the song, we all sprang to our feet. For, through one of
+the little windows of the tower, towards which I had looked as I sang,
+I saw, suddenly rising over the edge of the slope on which our tower
+stood, three enormous heads. The brothers knew at once, by my looks,
+what caused my sudden movement. We were utterly unarmed, and there was
+no time to arm.
+
+But we seemed to adopt the same resolution simultaneously; for each
+caught up his favourite weapon, and, leaving his defence behind, sprang
+to the door. I snatched 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; and the younger, a great, two-handed
+sword, which he wielded in one hand like a feather. 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’s motions, ere
+the triple giant-brotherhood drew near to attack us. They were about
+twice our height, and armed to the teeth. Through the visors of their
+helmets their monstrous eyes shone with a horrible ferocity. I was in
+the middle position, and the middle giant approached me. My eyes were
+busy with his armour, and I was not a moment in settling my mode of
+attack. I saw that his body-armour was somewhat clumsily made, and that
+the overlappings in the lower part 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 till he came near enough to aim a
+blow at me with the mace, which has been, in all ages, the favourite
+weapon of giants, when, of course, I leaped aside, and let the blow
+fall upon the spot where I had been standing. I expected this would
+strain 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 fatigue him. 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 same time, kept equal watch upon those
+joints of his armour, through some one of which I hoped to reach his
+life. At length, as if somewhat fatigued, he paused a moment, and drew
+himself slightly up; I bounded forward, foot and hand, ran my rapier
+right through to the armour of his back, let go the hilt, and passing
+under his right arm, turned as he fell, and flew at him with my sabre.
+At one happy 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 his head, and turned, uninjured, to see how my
+brothers had fared. Both the giants were down, but so were my brothers.
+I flew first to the one and then to the other couple. Both pairs of
+combatants were dead, and yet locked together, as in the
+death-struggle. The elder had buried his battle-axe in the body of his
+foe, and had fallen beneath him as he fell. The giant had strangled him
+in his own 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, and stabbed him mortally in the
+throat. The blood from the giant’s throat was yet pouring over the hand
+of his foe, which still grasped the hilt of the dagger sheathed in the
+wound. They lay silent. I, the least worthy, remained the sole survivor
+in the lists.
+
+As I stood exhausted amidst the dead, after the first worthy deed of my
+life, I suddenly looked behind me, and there lay the Shadow, black in
+the sunshine. I went into the lonely tower, and there lay the useless
+armour of the noble youths—supine as they.
+
+Ah, how sad it looked! It was a glorious death, but it was death. My
+songs could not comfort me now. I was almost ashamed that I was alive,
+when they, the true-hearted, were no more. And yet I breathed freer to
+think that I had gone through the trial, and had not failed. And
+perhaps I may be forgiven, if some feelings of pride arose in my bosom,
+when I looked down on the mighty form that lay 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 was over, and, hastening to the country below, roused the
+peasants. They came with shouting and gladness, bringing waggons to
+carry the bodies. I resolved to take the princes home to their father,
+each as he lay, in the arms of his country’s foe. But first I searched
+the giants, and found the keys of their 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 and ladies, 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 the glorious
+brothers, lying dead by their lonely tower, were those to whom the
+thanks belonged. I had but aided in carrying out the thought born in
+their brain, and uttered in visible form before ever I laid hold
+thereupon. Yet I did count 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
+all commenced our journey towards the capital. This was slow at first;
+but, as the strength and spirits of the prisoners returned, it became
+more rapid; and in three 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 them inextricably intertwined with the dead
+bodies of their princes, the people raised a shout and then a cry, and
+followed in multitudes the solemn procession.
+
+I will not attempt to describe the behaviour of the grand old king. Joy
+and pride in his sons overcame his sorrow at their loss. On me he
+heaped every kindness that heart could devise or hand execute. He used
+to sit and question me, night after night, about everything that was in
+any way connected with them and their preparations. Our mode of life,
+and relation to each other, during the time we spent together, was a
+constant theme. He entered into the minutest details of the
+construction of the armour, even to a peculiar mode of riveting some of
+the plates, with unwearying interest. This armour I had intended to beg
+of the king, as my sole memorials of the contest; but, when I saw the
+delight he took in contemplating it, and the consolation it appeared to
+afford him in his sorrow, I could not ask for it; but, at his request,
+left my own, weapons and all, to be joined with theirs in a trophy,
+erected in the grand square of the palace. The king, with gorgeous
+ceremony, dubbed me knight with his own old hand, in which trembled the
+sword of his youth.
+
+During the short time I remained, my company was, naturally, much
+courted by the young nobles. I was in a constant round of gaiety and
+diversion, notwithstanding that the court was in mourning. For the
+country was so rejoiced at the death of the giants, and so many of
+their lost friends had been restored to 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 the time that I was at work in the tower. Even in the society of
+the ladies of the court, who seemed to think it only their duty to make
+my stay there as pleasant to me as possible, I could not help being
+conscious of its presence, although it might not be annoying me at the
+time. At length, somewhat weary of uninterrupted pleasure, and nowise
+strengthened thereby, either in body or mind, I put on a splendid suit
+of armour of steel inlaid with silver, which the old king had given me,
+and, mounting the horse on which it had been brought to me, took my
+leave of the palace, to visit the distant city in which the lady dwelt,
+whom the elder prince had loved. I anticipated a sore task, in
+conveying to her the news of his glorious fate: but this trial was
+spared me, in a manner as strange as anything that had happened to me
+in Fairy Land.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+“No one has my form but the _I_.”
+          _Schoppe_, in JEAN PAUL’S _Titan_.
+
+“Joy’s a subtil elf.
+I think man’s happiest when he forgets himself.”
+          CYRIL TOURNEUR, _The Revenger’s Tragedy_.
+
+
+On the third day of my journey, I was riding gently along a road,
+apparently little frequented, to judge from the grass that grew upon
+it. I was approaching a forest. Everywhere in Fairy Land forests are
+the places where one may most certainly expect adventures. As I drew
+near, a youth, unarmed, gentle, and beautiful, who had just cut a
+branch from a yew growing on the skirts of the wood, evidently to make
+himself a bow, met me, and thus accosted me:
+
+“Sir knight, be careful as thou ridest through this forest; for it is
+said to be strangely enchanted, in a sort which even those who have
+been witnesses of its enchantment can hardly describe.”
+
+I thanked him for his advice, which I promised to follow, and rode on.
+But the moment I entered the wood, it seemed to me that, if enchantment
+there was, it must be of a good kind; for the Shadow, which had been
+more than usually dark and distressing, since I had set out on this
+journey, suddenly disappeared. I felt 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 had actually to remind
+myself, that I had only killed one of them; and that, but for the
+brothers, I should never have had the idea of attacking them, not to
+mention the smallest power of standing to it. Still I rejoiced, and
+counted myself amongst the glorious knights of old; having even the
+unspeakable presumption—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 of myself (will the world believe it?) as side by side
+with Sir Galahad! Scarcely had 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 armour seemed to shine of itself, without
+the sun. When he drew near, I was astonished to see that this armour
+was like my own; nay, I could trace, line for line, the correspondence
+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 was
+greater and fiercer than his counterpart. The knight rode with beaver
+up. As he halted right opposite to me in the narrow path, barring my
+way, I saw the reflection of my countenance in the centre plate of
+shining steel on his breastplate. Above it rose the same face—his
+face—only, as I have said, larger and fiercer. I was bewildered. I
+could not help feeling some admiration 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
+art for ever a slave.”
+
+I tried, but my arm trembled so much, that I could not couch my lance.
+To tell the truth, I, who had overcome the giant, shook like a coward
+before this knight. He gave a scornful laugh, that echoed through the
+wood, turned his horse, and said, without looking round, “Follow me.”
+
+I obeyed, abashed and stupefied. How long he led, and how long I
+followed, I cannot tell. “I never knew misery before,” I said to
+myself. “Would that I had at least struck him, and had had my
+death-blow in return! Why, then, do I not call to him to wheel and
+defend himself? Alas! I know not why, but I cannot. One look from him
+would cow me like a beaten hound.” I followed, and was silent.
+
+At length we came to a dreary square tower, in the middle of a dense
+forest. It looked as if scarce a tree had been cut down to make room
+for it. Across the very door, diagonally, grew the stem of a tree, so
+large that there was just room to squeeze past it in order to enter.
+One miserable square hole in the roof was the only visible suggestion
+of a window. Turret or battlement, or projecting masonry of any kind,
+it had none. Clear and smooth and massy, it rose 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 point where the
+rafters met. Round the base lay several little heaps of either bits of
+broken branches, withered and peeled, or half-whitened bones; I could
+not distinguish which. As I approached, the ground sounded hollow
+beneath my horse’s hoofs. The knight took a great key from his pocket,
+and reaching past the stem of the tree, with some difficulty opened the
+door. “Dismount,” he commanded. I obeyed. He turned my horse’s head
+away 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 with you.”
+
+I looked round: knight and horse had vanished, and behind me lay the
+horrible shadow. I entered, for I could not help myself; and the shadow
+followed me. I had a terrible conviction that the knight and he were
+one. The door closed behind me.
+
+Now I was indeed in pitiful plight. There was literally nothing in the
+tower but my shadow and me. The walls rose right up to the roof; in
+which, as I had seen from without, there was one little square opening.
+This I now knew to be the only window the tower possessed. I sat down
+on the floor, in listless wretchedness. I think I must have fallen
+asleep, and have slept for hours; for I suddenly became aware of
+existence, in observing that the moon was shining through the hole in
+the roof. As she rose higher and higher, her light crept down 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 sat beneath a
+beech, on the edge of a forest, and the open country lay, in the
+moonlight, for miles and miles around me, spotted with glimmering
+houses and spires 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 one that loves me, and I can go where I will.” I
+rose, as I thought, and walked 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 than ever, 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 faint light of the dawn
+appeared, instead of shining upon me from the eye of the morning, it
+stole like a fainting ghost through the little square hole above my
+head; and the walls came out as the light grew, and the glorious night
+was swallowed up of the hateful day. The long dreary day passed. My
+shadow lay black on the floor. I felt no hunger, no need of food. The
+night came. The moon shone. 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 touched me, and I was free. Thus night
+after night passed away. I should have died but for this. Every night
+the conviction returned, that I was free. Every morning I sat
+wretchedly disconsolate. At length, when the course of the moon no
+longer permitted 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 mere shred of pallor, scattered a few thin ghostly rays upon
+me; and I think I fell asleep and dreamed. I sat in an autumn night
+before the vintage, on a hill overlooking 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. All were in consternation
+at my absence. My sisters were weeping for my loss. They sprang up and
+clung to me, with incoherent cries, as I entered. My old friends came
+flocking round me. A gray light shone on the roof of the hall. It was
+the light of the dawn shining through the square window of my tower.
+More earnestly than 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 the little window in the trap of my tower, how
+it went by, waiting only for the dreams of the night.
+
+About noon, I started as if something foreign to all my senses and all
+my experience, had suddenly invaded me; yet it was only the voice of a
+woman singing. My whole frame quivered with joy, surprise, and the
+sensation of the unforeseen. Like a living soul, like an incarnation of
+Nature, the song entered my prison-house. Each tone folded its wings,
+and laid itself, like a caressing bird, upon my heart. It bathed me
+like a sea; inwrapt me like an odorous vapour; entered my soul like a
+long draught of clear spring-water; shone upon me like essential
+sunlight; soothed me like a mother’s voice and hand. Yet, as the
+clearest forest-well tastes sometimes of the bitterness of decayed
+leaves, 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 wept half-bitterly, half-luxuriously; but not
+long. I dashed away the tears, ashamed of a weakness which I thought I
+had abandoned. Ere I knew, I had walked to the door, and seated myself
+with my ears against it, in order to catch every syllable of the
+revelation from the unseen outer world. And now I heard each word
+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? I do not know.
+
+At first I could see no one; but when I had forced myself past the tree
+which grew across the entrance, I saw, seated on the ground, and
+leaning against the tree, with her back to my prison, a beautiful
+woman. Her countenance seemed known to me, and yet unknown. She looked
+at me and smiled, when I made my appearance.
+
+“Ah! were you the prisoner there? I am very glad I have wiled you out.”
+
+“Do you know me then?”
+
+“Do you not know me? But you hurt me, and that, I suppose, makes it
+easy for a man to forget. You broke my globe. Yet I thank you. Perhaps
+I owe you many thanks for breaking it. I took the pieces, all black,
+and wet with crying over them, to the Fairy Queen. There was no music
+and no light in them now. But she took them from me, and laid them
+aside; and made me go to sleep in a great hall of white, with black
+pillars, and many red curtains. When I woke in the morning, I went to
+her, hoping to have my globe again, whole and sound; but she sent me
+away without it, and I have not seen it since. Nor do I care for it
+now. 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
+everywhere through 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 deliver people. 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 of the child, glorified in the countenance of the woman.
+
+I was ashamed and humbled before her; but a great weight was lifted
+from my thoughts. I knelt before her, and thanked her, and begged her
+to forgive me.
+
+“Rise, rise,” she said; “I have nothing to forgive; I thank you. 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
+I come.”
+
+She rose, and with a smile and a farewell, turned and left me. I dared
+not ask her to stay; in fact, I could hardly speak to her. Between her
+and me, there was a great gulf. She was uplifted, by sorrow and
+well-doing, into a region I could hardly hope ever to enter. I watched
+her departure, as one watches a sunset. She went like a radiance
+through the dark wood, which was henceforth bright 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 her broken globe were now in her heart and her brain. As she went,
+she sang; and I caught these few words of her song; and the tones
+seemed to linger and wind about 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
+knowledge of her peace and gladness, I bethought me what now I should
+do. First, I must leave the tower far behind me, lest, in some evil
+moment, I might be once more caged within its horrible walls. But it
+was ill walking in my heavy armour; and besides I had now no right to
+the golden spurs and the resplendent mail, fitly dulled with long
+neglect. I might do for a squire; but I honoured knighthood too highly,
+to call myself any longer one of the noble brotherhood. I stripped off
+all my armour, piled it under the tree, just where the lady had been
+seated, 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
+am what I am, nothing more.” “I have failed,” I said, “I have lost
+myself—would it had been my shadow.” I looked round: the shadow was
+nowhere to be seen. Ere long, I learned that it was not myself, but
+only 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 pride and fancied innocence. I learned that he that
+will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but
+a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood. In nothing was my ideal
+lowered, or dimmed, or grown less precious; I only saw it too plainly,
+to set myself for a moment beside it. Indeed, my ideal soon became my
+life; whereas, formerly, my life had consisted in a vain attempt to
+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
+despising and degrading myself. Another self seemed to arise, like a
+white spirit from a dead man, from the dumb and trampled self of the
+past. Doubtless, this self must 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
+something deeper and stronger than it, which will emerge at last from
+the unknown abysses of the soul: will it be as a solemn gloom, burning
+with eyes? or a clear morning after the rain? or a smiling child, that
+finds itself nowhere, and everywhere?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+“High erected thought, seated in a heart of courtesy.”
+          SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.
+
+“A sweet attractive kinde of grace,
+    A full assurance given by lookes,
+Continuall comfort in a face,
+    The lineaments of Gospel bookes.”
+          MATTHEW ROYDON, on Sir Philip Sidney.
+
+
+I had not gone far, for I had but just lost sight of the hated tower,
+when a voice of another sort, sounding near or far, as the trees
+permitted or intercepted its passage, reached me. It was a full, deep,
+manly voice, but withal clear and melodious. Now it burst on the ear
+with a sudden swell, and anon, 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 of the song, and get transient
+glimpses of the singer, between the columns of the trees. 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 I
+could 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 the long neck to the hinder part of the saddle, and trailing its
+hideous length on the ground behind, the body of a great dragon. It was
+no wonder that, with such a drag at his heels, the horse could make but
+slow progress, notwithstanding his evident dismay. The horrid,
+serpent-like head, with its black tongue, forked with red, hanging out
+of its jaws, dangled against the horse’s side. Its neck was covered
+with long blue hair, its sides with scales of green and gold. Its back
+was of corrugated skin, of a purple hue. Its belly was similar in
+nature, but its colour was leaden, dashed with blotches of livid blue.
+Its skinny, bat-like wings and its tail were of a dull gray. It was
+strange to see how so many gorgeous colours, so many curving lines, and
+such beautiful things as wings and hair and scales, combined to form
+the horrible creature, intense in ugliness.
+
+The knight was passing me with a salutation; but, as I walked towards
+him, he reined up, and I stood by his stirrup. When I came near him, I
+saw to my surprise 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 knew before, and whom I had seen in the vision,
+with the lady of the marble. But I could have thrown my arms around
+him, because she loved him. This discovery only strengthened the
+resolution I had formed, before I recognised him, of offering myself to
+the knight, to wait upon him as a squire, for he seemed to be
+unattended. I made my request in as few words as possible. He hesitated
+for a moment, and looked at me thoughtfully. I saw that he suspected
+who I was, but that he continued uncertain of his suspicion. No doubt
+he was soon convinced of its truth; but all the time I was with him,
+not a word crossed his lips with reference to what he evidently
+concluded I wished to leave unnoticed, if not to keep concealed.
+
+“Squire and knight should be friends,” said he: “can you take me by the
+hand?” And he held out the great gauntleted right hand. I grasped it
+willingly and strongly. Not a word more was said. The knight gave the
+sign to his horse, which again began his slow march, and I walked
+beside and a little behind.
+
+We had not gone very far before we arrived at a little cottage; from
+which, as we 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 sorely hurt. I was
+forced to leave her with the hermit, as I returned. You will find her
+there, and I think she will get better. You see I have brought you a
+present. This wretch will not hurt you again.” And he undid the
+creature’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 the door, with speechless thanks in his face.
+
+“You must bury the monster,” said the knight. “If I had arrived 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 during a 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 the reins
+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 run away.”
+
+When I returned, after obeying his orders, and entered the cottage, I
+saw the knight seated, without his helmet, and talking most familiarly
+with the simple host. I stood at the open door for a moment, and,
+gazing at him, inwardly justified the white lady in preferring him to
+me. A nobler countenance I never saw. Loving-kindness beamed from every
+line of his face. It seemed as if he would repay himself for the late
+arduous combat, by indulging in all the gentleness of a womanly heart.
+But when the talk ceased for a moment, he seemed to 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 told
+that, within the lips, the teeth were firmly closed. The whole face
+grew stern and 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
+her little burden. She gazed, with a wild love and despairing
+tenderness, on the still, 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 from his whole countenance. He took the little thing in his arms,
+and, with the mother’s help, undressed her, and looked to her wounds.
+The tears flowed down his face as he did so. With tender hands he bound
+them up, kissed the pale cheek, and gave her back to her mother. When
+he went home, all his tale would be of the grief and joy of the
+parents; while to me, who had looked on, the gracious countenance of
+the armed man, beaming from the panoply of steel, over the 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 the
+centre of the story.
+
+After we had partaken of the best they could give us, the knight took
+his leave, with a few parting instructions to the mother as to how she
+should treat the child.
+
+I brought the knight his steed, held the stirrup while he mounted, and
+then followed him through the wood. The horse, delighted to be free of
+his hideous load, bounded beneath the weight of man and armour, and
+could hardly be restrained 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 compelled me to get into the saddle, saying:
+“Knight and squire must share the labour.”
+
+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 what humble part my sense of my condition would permit me.
+
+“Somehow or other,” said he, “notwithstanding the beauty of this
+country of Faerie, in which we are, there is much that is wrong in it.
+If there are great splendours, there are corresponding horrors; heights
+and depths; beautiful women and awful fiends; noble men and weaklings.
+All a man has 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 be content to be defeated, if so be that the fault is
+not his; and so go to his work with a cool brain and a strong will, he
+will get it done; and fare none the worse in the end, that he was not
+burdened with provision and precaution.”
+
+“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 for me—-”
+
+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
+came to 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 something
+about 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 little beggar-girl came into the hall where I was
+sitting, and told me a very curious story, which I can only recollect
+very vaguely, it was so peculiar. What I can recall is, that she was
+sent to gather wings. As soon as she had gathered a pair of wings for
+herself, she was to fly away, she said, to the country she came from;
+but where that was, she could give no information.
+
+“She said she had to beg her wings from the butterflies and moths; and
+wherever she begged, no one refused her. But she needed a great many of
+the wings of butterflies and moths to make a pair for her; and so she
+had to wander about day after day, looking for butterflies, and night
+after night, looking for moths; and then she begged for their wings.
+But the day before, she had come into a part of the forest, she said,
+where there were multitudes of splendid butterflies flitting about,
+with wings which were just fit to make the eyes in the shoulders of
+hers; and she knew she could have as many of them as she liked for the
+asking; but as soon as she began to beg, there came a great creature
+right up to her, and threw her down, and walked over her. When she got
+up, she saw the wood was full of these beings stalking about, and
+seeming to have nothing to do with each other. As soon as ever she
+began to beg, one of them walked over her; till at last in dismay, and
+in growing horror of the senseless creatures, she had run away to look
+for somebody to help her. I asked her what they were like. She said,
+like great men, made of wood, without knee-or elbow-joints, and without
+any noses or mouths or eyes in their faces. I laughed 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 truth of her
+story.”
+
+“‘Only come, knight, come and see; I will lead you.’
+
+“So I armed myself, to be ready for anything that might happen, and
+followed the child; for, though I could make nothing of her story, I
+could see she was a little human being in need of some help or other.
+As she walked before me, I looked attentively at her. Whether or not it
+was from being so often knocked down and walked over, I could not tell,
+but her clothes were very much torn, and in several places her white
+skin was peeping through. I thought she was hump-backed; but on looking
+more closely, I saw, through the tatters of her frock—do not laugh at
+me—a bunch on each shoulder, of the most gorgeous colours. Looking yet
+more closely, I saw that they were of the shape of 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 colour and shade. I could now more easily believe the rest of her
+story; especially as I saw, every now and then, a certain heaving
+motion in the wings, as if they longed to be uplifted and outspread.
+But beneath her scanty garments complete wings could not be concealed,
+and indeed, from her own story, they were yet unfinished.
+
+“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 which was quivering with the motions of multitudes of
+resplendent butterflies; as gorgeous in colour, as if the eyes of
+peacocks’ feathers had taken to flight, but of infinite variety of hue
+and form, only that the appearance of some kind of eye on each wing
+predominated. ‘There they are, there they are!’ cried the child, in a
+tone of victory mingled with terror. Except for this tone, I should
+have thought she referred to the butterflies, for I could see nothing
+else. But at that moment an enormous butterfly, whose wings had great
+eyes of blue surrounded by confused cloudy heaps of more dingy
+colouring, 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 the ground, and began crying as if hurt. I drew my sword and
+heaved a great blow in the direction in which the child had fallen. It
+struck something, and instantly the most grotesque imitation of a man
+became visible. You see this Fairy Land is full of oddities and all
+sorts of incredibly ridiculous things, which a man is compelled to meet
+and treat as real existences, although all the time he feels foolish
+for doing so. This being, if being it could be called, was like a block
+of wood roughly hewn into the mere outlines of a man; and hardly so,
+for it had but head, body, legs, and arms—the head without a face, and
+the limbs utterly formless. I had hewn off one of its legs, but the two
+portions moved on as best they could, quite independent of each other;
+so that I had done 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 came bustling up; and if I had not
+interposed my weight between her and them, she would have been trampled
+again under them. I saw that something else must be done. If the wood
+was full of the creatures, it would be an endless work to chop them so
+small that they could do no injury; and then, besides, the parts would
+be so numerous, that the butterflies would be in danger from the drift
+of flying chips. I served this one so, however; and then told the girl
+to beg again, 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 been invisible before. I would not allow
+him to walk over the child; but while I kept him off, and she began
+begging again, another appeared; and it was all I could 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. I
+tripped 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 last time. Whenever one appeared, I followed the same
+plan—tripped him up and set him on his head; and so the little beggar
+was able to gather her wings without any trouble, which occupation she
+continued for several hours in my company.”
+
+“What became of her?” I asked.
+
+“I took her home with me to my castle, and she told me all her story;
+but it 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 leave hers in some certain order of its own. My wife—-”
+
+Here the knight checked himself, and said no more. Neither did I urge
+the conversation farther.
+
+Thus we journeyed for several days, resting at night in such shelter as
+we could get; and when no better was to be had, lying in the forest
+under some tree, on a couch of old leaves.
+
+I loved the knight more and more. I believe never squire served his
+master with more care and joyfulness than I. I tended his horse; I
+cleaned his armour; my skill 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 fain
+become. If I cannot be noble myself, I will yet be servant to his
+nobleness.” He, in return, soon showed me such signs of friendship and
+respect, as made my heart glad; and I felt that, after all, mine would
+be no lost life, if I might wait on him to the world’s end, although no
+smile but his should greet me, and no one but him should say, “Well
+done! he was a good servant!” at last. But I burned to do something
+more for him than the ordinary routine of a squire’s duty permitted.
+
+One afternoon, we began to observe an appearance of roads in the wood.
+Branches had 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 a long, narrow avenue, formed by felling the trees
+in its line, as the remaining roots evidenced. At some little distance,
+on both hands, we observed signs of similar avenues, which appeared to
+converge with ours, towards one spot. Along these 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 of yew-trees,
+growing close together, and intertwining their branches so, that
+nothing could be seen beyond it. An opening was cut in it like a door,
+and all the wall was trimmed smooth and perpendicular. The knight
+dismounted, and waited till I had provided for his horse’s comfort;
+upon which we entered the place together.
+
+It was a great space, bare of trees, and enclosed by four walls of yew,
+similar to 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 summits formed a row of conical battlements all around
+the walls. The space contained was a parallelogram of great length.
+Along each of the two longer sides of the interior, were ranged three
+ranks of men, in white robes, standing silent and solemn, each with a
+sword by his side, although the rest of his costume and bearing was
+more priestly than soldierly. For some distance inwards, the space
+between these opposite rows was filled with a company of men and women
+and children, in holiday attire. The looks of all were directed
+inwards, towards the further end. Far beyond the crowd, in a long
+avenue, seeming to narrow in the distance, went the long rows of the
+white-robed men. On what the attention of the multitude was fixed, we
+could not tell, for the sun had set before we arrived, and it was
+growing dark within. It grew darker and darker. The multitude 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 the
+pinnacles of the tree-tops; and made a strange sound, half like music,
+half like moaning, through the close branches and leaves of the
+tree-walls. A young girl who stood beside me, clothed in the same dress
+as the priests, bowed her head, and grew pale with awe.
+
+The knight whispered to me, “How solemn it is! Surely they wait to hear
+the voice of a prophet. There is something good near!”
+
+But I, though somewhat shaken by the feeling expressed by my master,
+yet had an unaccountable conviction that here was something bad. So I
+resolved to be keenly 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, which went rolling round and round the building, now receding
+to the end, and now approaching, down the other side, the place where
+we stood. For some of the singers were regularly ceasing, and the next
+to them as regularly taking up the song, so that it crept onwards with
+gradations produced by changes which could not themselves be detected,
+for only a few of those who were singing ceased at the same moment. The
+song paused; and I saw a company of six of the white-robed men walk up
+the centre of the human avenue, surrounding a youth gorgeously attired
+beneath his robe of white, and wearing a chaplet of flowers on his
+head. I followed them closely, with my keenest observation; and, by
+accompanying their slow progress with my eyes, I was able to perceive
+more clearly what took place when they arrived at the other end. I knew
+that my sight was so much more keen than that of most people, that I
+had good reason to suppose I should see more than the rest could, at
+such a distance. At the farther end a throne stood upon a platform,
+high above the heads of the surrounding priests. To this platform I saw
+the company begin to ascend, apparently by an inclined plane or gentle
+slope. The throne itself was elevated again, 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 a mixture
+of pride and benignity, as he looked down on the multitude below. The
+company ascended to the foot of the throne, where they all kneeled for
+some minutes; then they rose and passed round to the side of the
+pedestal upon which the throne stood. Here they crowded close behind
+the youth, putting him in the foremost place, and one of them opened a
+door in the pedestal, for the youth to enter. I was sure I saw him
+shrink back, and those crowding behind pushed him in. Then, again,
+arose a burst of song from the multitude in white, which lasted some
+time. When it ceased, a new company of seven commenced its march up the
+centre. As they advanced, I looked up at my master: his noble
+countenance was full of reverence and awe. Incapable of evil himself,
+he could scarcely suspect it in another, much less in a multitude such
+as this, and surrounded with such appearances of solemnity. I was
+certain it was the really grand accompaniments that overcame him; that
+the stars overhead, the dark towering tops of the yew-trees, and the
+wind that, like an unseen spirit, sighed through their branches, bowed
+his spirit to the belief, that in all these ceremonies lay some great
+mystical meaning which, his humility told him, his ignorance prevented
+him from understanding.
+
+More convinced than before, that there was evil here, I could not
+endure that my master should be deceived; that one like him, so pure
+and noble, should respect what, if my suspicions were true, was worse
+than the ordinary deceptions of priestcraft. I could not tell how far
+he might be led to countenance, and otherwise support their doings,
+before he should find cause to repent bitterly of his error. I watched
+the new procession yet more keenly, if possible, than the former. This
+time, the central figure was a girl; and, at the close, I observed, yet
+more indubitably, the shrinking back, and the crowding push. What
+happened to the victims, I never learned; but I had learned enough, and
+I could bear it no longer. I stooped, and whispered to the young girl
+who stood by me, to lend me her white garment. I wanted it, that I
+might not be entirely out of keeping with the solemnity, but might have
+at least this help 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, she permitted 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, I rose apparently in the habit of one of the worshippers.
+
+Giving my battle-axe to the girl, to hold in pledge for the return of
+her stole, for I wished to test the matter unarmed, and, if it was a
+man that sat upon the throne, to attack him with hands bare, as I
+supposed his must be, I made 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 the priests. 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 my coolness aided my
+passage; for I felt quite indifferent as to my own fate; not feeling,
+after the late events of my history, that I was at all worth taking
+care of; and enjoying, perhaps, something of an evil satisfaction, in
+the revenge I was thus taking upon the self which had fooled me so
+long. When I arrived on the platform, the song had just ceased, and I
+felt as if all were looking towards me. But instead of kneeling at its
+foot, I walked right up the stairs to the throne, laid hold of a great
+wooden image that seemed to sit upon it, and tried to hurl it from its
+seat. In this I failed at first, for I found it 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 with all my
+might; and, with a noise as of the cracking, and breaking, and tearing
+of rotten wood, something gave way, and I hurled the image down the
+steps. Its displacement revealed a great hole in the throne, like the
+hollow of a decayed tree, 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 twice the size, and tumbled me headlong
+with itself, down the steps of the throne. As we fell, however, I
+caught it by the throat, and the moment we reached the platform, a
+struggle commenced, in which I soon got uppermost, with my hand upon
+its throat, and knee upon its heart. But now arose a wild cry of wrath
+and revenge and rescue. A universal hiss of steel, as every sword was
+swept from its scabbard, seemed to tear the very air in shreds. I heard
+the rush of hundreds towards the platform on which I knelt. I only
+tightened my grasp of the brute’s throat. His eyes were already
+starting from his head, and his tongue was hanging out. My anxious hope
+was, that, even after they had killed me, they would be unable to undo
+my gripe of his throat, before the monster was past breathing. I
+therefore threw all my will, and force, and purpose, into the grasping
+hand. I remember no blow. A faintness came over me, and my
+consciousness 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
+in peace. 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, but
+hurt me not. I cut a lane through to my friend. He was dead. But he had
+throttled the monster, and I had to cut the handful out of its throat,
+before I could disengage and carry off his body. They dared not molest
+me as I brought him back.”
+
+“He has died well,” said the lady.
+
+My spirit rejoiced. They left me to my repose. I felt as if a cool hand
+had been 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 in the last rays of the down-going sun, and the
+wind of the twilight has begun to blow. The hot fever of life had gone
+by, and I breathed the clear mountain-air of the land of Death. I had
+never dreamed of such blessedness. It was not that I had in any way
+ceased to be what I had been. The very fact that anything can die,
+implies the existence of something that cannot die; which must either
+take to 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 spiritual life. If my passions were dead, the souls of
+the passions, those essential mysteries of the spirit which had
+imbodied themselves in the passions, and had given to them all their
+glory and wonderment, yet lived, yet glowed, with a pure, undying fire.
+They rose above their vanishing earthly garments, and disclosed
+themselves angels of light. But oh, how beautiful beyond the old form!
+I lay thus for a time, and lived as it were an unradiating existence;
+my soul 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
+white bed, and heard the sound of his playthings being laid aside for
+the night, with a more luxurious satisfaction of repose than I knew,
+when I felt the coffin settle on the firm earth, and heard the sound of
+the falling mould upon its lid. It has not the same hollow rattle
+within the coffin, that it sends up to the edge of the grave. They
+buried me in no graveyard. They loved me too much for 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, and
+blue-bells, and all the families of the woods
+
+Now that I lay in her bosom, the whole earth, and each of her many
+births, was as a body to me, at my will. I seemed to feel the great
+heart of the mother beating into mine, and feeding me with her own
+life, her own essential being and nature. I heard the footsteps of my
+friends above, and they sent a thrill through my heart. I knew that the
+helpers had gone, and that the knight and the lady remained, and spoke
+low, gentle, tearful words of him who lay beneath the yet wounded sod.
+I rose into a single large primrose that grew by the edge of the grave,
+and from the window of its humble, trusting face, looked full in the
+countenance 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 had used 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 had ever 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 yet
+illuminated a feathery cloud, that floated high above the world. I
+arose, I reached the cloud; and, throwing myself upon it, floated with
+it in sight of the sinking sun. He sank, and the cloud grew gray; but
+the grayness touched not my heart. It carried its rose-hue within; for
+now I could love without needing to 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 to the 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 the
+soul of another; yea, that, where two love, it is the loving of each
+other, and not the being loved by each other, that originates and
+perfects and assures their blessedness. I knew that love gives to him
+that loveth, power over any soul beloved, even if that soul know him
+not, bringing him inwardly close to that spirit; a power that cannot be
+but for good; for in proportion as selfishness intrudes, the love
+ceases, and the power which springs therefrom dies. Yet all love will,
+one day, meet with its return. All true love will, one day, behold its
+own image in the eyes of the beloved, and be humbly glad. This is
+possible in the realms of lofty Death. “Ah! my friends,” thought I,
+“how I will tend you, and wait upon you, and haunt you with my love.”
+
+My floating chariot bore me over a great city. Its faint dull sound
+steamed up into the air—a sound—how composed? “How many hopeless
+cries,” thought I, “and how many mad shouts go to make up the tumult,
+here so faint where I float in eternal peace, knowing that they will
+one day be stilled in the surrounding calm, and that despair dies into
+infinite hope, 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 in the dark, think hope into your hearts, when you fancy
+no one is near! Soon as my senses have all come back, and have grown
+accustomed to this new blessed life, I will be among you with the love
+that healeth.”
+
+With this, a pang and a terrible shudder went through me; a writhing as
+of death convulsed me; and I became once again conscious of a more
+limited, even a bodily and earthly life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+“Our life is no dream; but it ought to become one, and perhaps will.”
+          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 again closed around and infolded me, my first dread was, not
+unnaturally, that my own shadow had found me again, and that my torture
+had commenced anew. It was a sad revulsion of feeling. This, indeed,
+seemed to correspond to what we think death is, before we die. Yet I
+felt within me a power of calm endurance to which I had hitherto been a
+stranger. For, in truth, that I should be able if only to think such
+things as I had been thinking, was an unspeakable delight. An hour of
+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 saw him, coming from afar; and soon every dewdrop would
+rejoice in his individual presence within it.
+
+I lay motionless for a few minutes; and then slowly rose and looked
+about me. I was on the summit of a little hill; a valley lay beneath,
+and a range of mountains closed up the view upon that side. But, to my
+horror, across the valley, and up the height of the opposing mountains,
+stretched, from my very feet, 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 his head above the eastern hill,
+and the shadow that fell from me, lay only where his beams fell not. I
+danced for joy. It was only the natural shadow, that goes with every
+man who walks in the sun. As he arose, higher and higher, the
+shadow-head sank down the side of the opposite hill, and crept in
+across the valley towards my feet.
+
+Now that I was so joyously delivered from this fear, I saw and
+recognised the country around me. In the valley below, lay my own
+castle, and the haunts of my childhood were all about me hastened home.
+My sisters received me with unspeakable joy; but I suppose they
+observed some change in me, for a kind of respect, with a slight touch
+of awe in it, mingled with their joy, and made me ashamed. They had
+been in great distress about me. On the morning of my disappearance,
+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. I had 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 lay down once more in my own bed, I did
+not feel at all sure that when I awoke, I should not find myself in
+some mysterious region of Fairy Land. My dreams were incessant and
+perturbed; but when I did awake, I saw clearly that I was in my own
+home.
+
+My mind soon grew calm; and I began the duties of my new position,
+somewhat instructed, I hoped, by the adventures that had befallen me in
+Fairy Land. Could I translate the experience of my travels there, into
+common life? This was the question. Or must I live it all over again,
+and learn it all over again, in the other forms that belong to the
+world of men, whose experience yet runs parallel to that of Fairy Land?
+These questions I cannot answer yet. But I fear.
+
+Even yet, I find myself looking round sometimes with anxiety, to see
+whether my shadow falls right away from the sun or no. I have never yet
+discovered any inclination to either side. And if I am not unfrequently
+sad, I yet cast no more 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 to minister to my fellow men, or, rather,
+to repair the wrongs I have already done.
+
+May the world be brighter for me, at least in those portions of it,
+where my darkness falls not.
+
+Thus I, who set out to find my Ideal, came back rejoicing that I had
+lost my Shadow.
+
+When the thought of the blessedness I experienced, after my death in
+Fairy Land, is too high for me to lay hold upon it and hope in it, I
+often think of the wise woman in the cottage, and of her solemn
+assurance that she knew something too good to be told. When I am
+oppressed by any sorrow or real perplexity, I often feel as if I had
+only left her cottage for a time, and would soon return out of the
+vision, into it again. Sometimes, on such occasions, I find myself,
+unconsciously almost, looking about for the mystic mark of red, with
+the vague hope of entering her door, and being comforted by her wise
+tenderness. I then console myself by saying: “I have come through the
+door of Dismay; and the way back from the world into which that has led
+me, is through my tomb. Upon that the red sign lies, and I shall find
+it one day, and be glad.”
+
+I will end my story with the relation of an incident which befell me a
+few days ago. I had been with my reapers, and, when they ceased their
+work at noon, I had lain down under the shadow of a great, ancient
+beech-tree, that stood on the edge of the field. As I lay, with my eyes
+closed, I began to listen to the sound of the leaves overhead. At
+first, they made sweet inarticulate music alone; but, by-and-by, the
+sound seemed to begin to take shape, and to be gradually moulding
+itself into words; till, at last, I seemed able to distinguish 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 me of the voice of the ancient
+woman, in the cottage that was four-square. I opened my eyes, and, for
+a moment, almost believed that I saw her face, with its many wrinkles
+and its young eyes, looking at me from between two hoary branches of
+the beech overhead. But when I looked more keenly, I saw only twigs and
+leaves, and the infinite sky, in tiny spots, gazing through between.
+Yet I know that good is coming to me—that good is always coming; though
+few have at all times the simplicity and the courage to believe it.
+What we call evil, is the only and best shape, which, for the person
+and his condition at the time, could be assumed by the best good. And
+so, _Farewell_.
+
+
+
+
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