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Phantastes, A Faerie Romance for Men and Women

George MacDonald

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Phantastes, A Faerie Romance for Men and Women

by George MacDonald

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PHANTASTES

A FAERIE ROMANCE FOR MEN AND WOMEN

GEORGE MACDONALD

A new Edition, with thirty-three new Illustrations by Arthur

Hughes; edited by Greville MacDonald

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

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

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.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE MEETING OF SIR GALAHAD AND SIX PERCIVALE

SUDDENLY THERE STOOD ON THE THRESHOLD A TINY WOMAN-FORM

THE BRANCHES AND LEAVES ON THE CURTAINS OF MY BED WERE IN MOTION

I SAW A COUNTRY MAIDEN COMING TOWARDS ME

TAILPIECE TO CHAPTER III

HEADPIECE TO CHAPTER IV

TWO LARGE SOFT ARMS WERE THROWN AROUND ME FROM BEHIND

I GAZED AFTER HER IN A KIND OF DESPAIR

I FOUND MYSELF IN A LITTLE CAVE

THE ASH SHUDDERED AND GROANED

TAILPIECE TO CHAPTER VI

I COULD HARDLY BELIEVE THAT THERE WAS A FAIRY LAND

I DID NOT BELIEVE IN FAIRY LAND

A RUNNER WITH GHOSTLY FEET

THE MAIDEN CAME ALONG, SINGING AND DANCING,HAPPY AS A CHILD

THE GOBLINS PERFORMED THE MOST ANTIC HOMAGE

THE FAIRY PALACE IN THE MOONLIGHT

TOO DAZZLING FOR EARTHLY EYES

IN THE WOODS AND ALONG THE RIVER BANKS DO THE MAIDENS GO LOOKING

FOR CHILDREN

SHE LAY WITH CLOSED EYES, WHENCE TWO TEARS WERE FAST WELLING

HEADPIECE TO CHAPTER XIV

I SPRANG TO HER, AND LAID MY HAND ON THE HARP

A WHITE FIGURE GLEAMED PAST ME, WRINGING HER HANDS

THEY ALL RUSHED UPON ME, AND HELD ME TIGHT

A WINTRY SEA, BARE, AND WASTE, AND GRAY

SHOW ME THE CHILD THOU CALLEST MINE

THE TIME PASSED AWAY IN WORK AND SONG

HEADPIECE TO CHAPTER XXI

WE REACHED THE PALACE OF THE KING

I SAW, LEANING AGAINST THE TREE, A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN

FASTENED TO THE SADDLE, WAS THE BODY OF A GREAT DRAGON

I WAS DEAD, AND RIGHT CONTENT

A VALLEY LAY BENEATH ME

PHANTASTES

A FAERIE ROMANCE

"Phantastes from `their fount all shapes deriving,

In new habiliments can quickly dight."

FLETCHER'S Purple Island

{Below is raw OCR it has not been proofed as i cannot read it!}

"Es lassen sich Erzahlungen ohne Zusammenhang, jedoch mit

Association, wie Traume dengkeennohgneedizhusamdimenhang; jedoeh

mit und voll schoner Worte sind, aber auch ohne allen Sinn und

Zusammenhang, hochstens einzelne Strophen verstandlich, wie

Bruchstucke aus den verjschledenartigsten Dingen, Diese svahre

Poesie kann Wlrkung, wie Musik haben. Darum ist die Natur so

rein poetisch wle die Stube eines Zauberers, eines Physikers,

eine Kinderstube elne Polterund Vorrathskammer

"Ein Mahrchen ist wie ein Traumbild ohne Zusammenhang. Ein

Ensemble wunderbarer Dinge und Begebenheiten, z. B. eine

dMusNkalische Pbantasie, die harmonischen Folgen einer

Aeolsharfe, die Natur slebst.

. . . . . . . . . .

"In einem echten Mahrchen muss ailes wunderbar, geheimnissvoll

undzusammenhangendsein; alles belebt, jeder auf eineandereArt Die

ganze Natur muss wunderlich mit der ganzen Geisterwelt gemiseht

sein; hier tritt die Zeit der Anarehie, der Gesetzlosigkeit

Frelheit, der Naturstand der Natur, die Zeit von der Welt ein

entgegengesetztes und eben daruel'ndiehr Weld der Wahrheit

durehaus Chaos der vollendeten Sehopfung ahnlich ist."--NOVALIS.

~~~

CHAPTER 1

"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 its not

in 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 dies,

"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

feelingcontinued 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."

BEDDOIS' 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. It saw 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."

"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 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 Ime hurt, but yett not slaine;

He but lye downe and bleede awhile,

And then Ile 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 fill 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 shrorwd!

. . . . .

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 in

dwelling 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 resols'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

Ha 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."

SCHLEIERMACHERS, 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 clay, 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

dead.

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,

It 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."

DEKKER.

"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.

End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Phantastes, George MacDonald

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