Once upon a time there was a Princess. Now, this Princess dwelt in a far-off and beautiful world beyond the sunset, and she had immortal youth and an ancestry of glorious name. Very rich, too, she was, and the palace in which she lived was made all of marble and alabaster and things precious and wonderful. But that which was most wonderful about her was her exceeding beauty,—a beauty not like that one sees in the world this side of the sunset. For the beauty of the Princess was the bright-shining of a lovely spirit; her body was but the veil of her soul that shone through all her perfect form as the radiance of the sun shines through clear water. I cannot tell you how beautiful this Princess was, nor can I describe the color of her hair and her eyes, or the aspect of her face. Many men have seen her and tried to give an account of her; but though I have read several of these accounts, they differ so greatly from one another that I should find it hard indeed to reproduce her picture from the records of it which her lovers have left.

For all these men who have written about the Princess loved her; none, indeed, could help it who ever looked on her face. And to some she has seemed fair as the dawn, and to others dark as night; some have found her gay and joyous as Allegro, and others sad and silent and sweet as Penseroso. But to every lover she has seemed the essence and core of all beauty; the purest, noblest, highest, and most regal being that he has found it possible to conceive. I am not going to tell you about all the lovers of the Princess, for that would take many volumes to rehearse, but only about three of them, because these three were typical personages, and had very remarkable histories.

Like all the lovers of the Princess, these three men were travelers, coming from a distant country to the land beyond the sunset on purpose to see the beautiful lady of whom their fathers and grandfathers had told them; the lady who never could outlive youth because she belonged to the race of the everlasting Gods who ruled the earth in the old far-off Hellenic times.

I do not know how long these three men stayed in the country of the Princess; but they stayed quite long enough to be very, very much in love with her, and when at last they had to come away—for no man who is not "dead" can remain long beyond the sunset—she gave to each of them a beautiful little bird, a tiny living bird with a voice of sweetest music, that had been trained and tuned to song by Phoebus Apollo himself. And I could no more describe to you the sweetness of that song than I could describe the beauty of the Princess.

Then she told the travelers to be of brave heart and of valiant hope, because there lay before them an ordeal demanding all their prowess, and after that the prospect of a great reward. "Now," she said, "that you have learned to love me, and to desire to have your dwelling here with me, you must go forth to prove your knighthood. I am not inaccessible, but no man must think to win me for his lady unless he first justify his fealty by noble service. The world to which you now go is a world of mirage and of phantasms, which appear real only to those who have never reached and seen this realm of mine on the heavenward side of the sun. You will have to pass through ways beset by monstrous spectres, over wastes where rage ferocious hydras, chimeras, and strange dragons breathing flame. You must journey past beautiful shadowy islets of the summer sea, in whose fertile bays the cunning sirens sing; you must brave the mountain robber, the goblins of the wilderness, and the ogre whose joy is to devour living men. But fear nothing, for all these are but phantoms; nor do you need any sword or spear to slay them, but only a loyal mind and an unswerving purpose. Let not your vision be deceived, nor your heart beguiled; return to me unscathed through all these many snares, and doubt not the worth and greatness of the guerdon I shall give. Nor think you go unaided. With each of you I send a guide and monitor; heed well his voice and follow where he leads."

II.

Now, when the three travelers had received their presents, and had looked their last upon the shining face of the donor, they went out of the palace and through the golden gate of the wonderful city in which she dwelt, and so, once again, they came into the land which lies this side of the sun.

Then their ordeal began; but, indeed, they saw no sirens or dragons or gorgons, but only people like themselves going and coming along the highways. Some of these people sauntered, some ran, some walked alone and pensively, others congregated in groups together and talked or laughed or shouted noisy songs. Under the pleasant trees on the greensward were pavilions, beautifully adorned; the sound of music issued from many of them, fair women danced there under the new-blossoming trees, tossing flowers into the air, and feasts were spread, wine flowed, and jewels glittered. And the music and the dancing women pleased the ear and eye of one of the three travelers, so that he turned aside from his companions to listen and to look. Then presently a group of youths and girls drew near and spoke to him. "It is our festival," they said; "we are worshippers of Queen Beauty; come and feast with us. The moon of May is rising; we shall dance all night in her beautiful soft beams." But he said, "I have just returned from a country the beauty of which far surpasses that of anything one can see here, and where there is a Princess so lovely and so stately that the greatest Queen of all your world is not fit to be her tiring maid." Then they said, "Where is that country of which you speak, and who is this wonderful Princess?" "It is the land beyond the sunset," he answered, "but the name of the Princess no man knows until she herself tells it him. And she will tell it only to the man whom she loves."

At that they laughed and made mirth among themselves. "Your land is the land of dreams," they said; "we have heard all about it. Nothing there is real, and as for your Princess she is a mere shadow, a vision of your own creation, and no substantial being at all. The only real and true beauty is the beauty we see and touch and hear; the beauty which sense reveals to us, and which is present with us today." Then he answered, "I do not blame you at all, for you have never seen my Princess. But I have seen her, and heard her speak, and some day I hope to return to her. And when I came away she warned me that in this country I should be beset by all manner of strange and monstrous spectres, harpies, and sirens, eaters of men, whom I must bravely meet and overcome. I pray you tell me in what part of your land these dangers lie, that I may be on my guard against them."

Thereat they laughed the more, and answered him, "Oh, foolish traveler, your head is certainly full of dreams! There are no such things as sirens; all that is an old Greek fable, a fairy tale with no meaning except for old Greeks and modern babies! You will never meet with any sirens or harpies, nor will you ever see again the Princess of whom you talk, unless, indeed, in your dreams. It is this country that is the only real one, there is nothing at all beyond the sunset."

Now, all this time the little bird which the Princess had given to him was singing quite loudly under the folds of the traveler's cloak. And he took it out and showed it to the youths who spoke with him, and said, "This bird was given me by the Princess whom you declare to be a myth. How could a myth give me this living bird?" They answered, "You are surely a madman as well as a dreamer. Doubtless the bird flew into your chamber while you slept, and your dreaming fancy took advantage of the incident to frame this tale about the Princess and her gift. It is often so in dreams. The consciousness perceives things as it were through a cloud, and weaves fictions out of realities."

Then he began to doubt, but still he held his ground, and said, "Yet hear how sweetly it sings! No wild, untaught bird of earth could sing like that." Whereat they were vastly merry, and one cried, Why, it is quite a common 'tweet-tweet!' It is no more than the chirp of a vulgar, everyday thrush or linnet!" And another, "Were I you, I would wring the bird's neck; it must be a terrible nuisance if it always makes such a noise!" And a third, "Let it fly, we cannot hear ourselves speaking for its screaming!" Then the traveler began to feel ashamed of his bird. "All that I say," he thought, "appears to them foolish, even the Princess's gift is, in their eyes, a common chirping chaffinch. What if indeed I have been dreaming; what if this, after all, should be the real world, and the other a mere fantasy?"

The bird sang, "Away! away! or you will never see the Princess more!
The real world lies beyond the gates of the sunset!"

But when the traveler asked the youths what the bird sang, they answered that they had only heard "Tweet-tweet," and "Chirp-chirp." Then he was really angry, but not with them, as you would perhaps have thought. No, he was angry with the bird, and ashamed of it and of himself. And he threw it from him into the air, and clapped his hands to drive it away; and all the youths and girls that stood around him clapped theirs too. "Sh-shsh," they cried, "be off, you are a good-for-nothing hedge-finch, and may be thankful your neck has not been wrung to punish you for making such a noise!"

So the bird flew away, away beyond the sunset, and I think it went back to the Princess and told her all that had happened. And the traveler went, and danced and sang and feasted to his heart's content with the worshippers of Queen Beauty, not knowing that he really had fallen among the sirens after all!

III.

Meanwhile the two other travelers had gone on their way, for neither of them cared about pleasure; one was a grave-looking man who walked with his eyes on the ground, looking curiously at every rock and shrub he passed by the wayside, and often pausing to examine more closely a strange herb, or to pick to pieces a flower; the other had a calm, sweet face, and he walked erect, his eyes lifted towards the great mountains that lay far away before them.

By-and-by there came along the road towards the two travelers a company of men carrying banners, on which were inscribed as mottoes— "Knowledge is Freedom!" " Science knows no law but the law of Progress!" "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity!" "Utility is Virtue," and a great many other fine phrases. Most of the persons who marched first in this procession wore spectacles, and some were clad in academical costumes. The greater number had gone past, when the grave-looking traveler—he who had interested himself so much in the stones and foliage by the wayside—courteously stopped one of the company and asked him what the procession meant. "We are worshippers of Science," answered the man whom he addressed; "today we hold solemn rites in honor of our deity. Many orations will be made by her high priests, and a great number of victims slain,—lambs, and horses, and doves, and hinds, and all manner of animals. They will be put to death with unspeakable torments, racked, and maimed, and burned, and hewn asunder, all for the glory and gain of Science. And we shall shout with enthusiasm as the blood flows over her altars, and the smoke ascends in her praise."

"But all this is horrible," said the grave man, with a gesture of avoidance; "it sounds to me like a description of the orgies of savages, or of the pastimes of madmen; it is unworthy of intelligent and sane men." "On the contrary," returned his informant, "it is just because we are intelligent and sane that we take delight in it. For it is by means of these sacrifices that our deity vouchsafes her oracles. In the mangled corpses and entrails of these victims our augurs find the knowledges we seek," "And what knowledges are they?" asked the traveler. "The knowledge of Nature's secrets," cried the votary of Science with kindling eye, "the knowledge of life and death; the magic of the art of healing disease; the solution of the riddle of the universe! All this we learn, all this we perceive, in the dying throes of our victims. Does not this suffice?—is not the end great enough to justify the means?"

Then, when the second of the travelers heard these words—he whose face had been lifted as he walked—he drew nearer and answered:—

"No; it is greater to be just than to be learned. No man should wish to be healed at the cost of another's torment." At which the stranger frowned, and retorted impatiently, "You forget, methinks, that they whom we seek to heal are men, and they who are tormented merely beasts. By these means we enrich and endow humanity." "Nay, I forget not," he answered gently, "but he who would be so healed is man no longer. By that wish and act he becomes lower than any beast. Nor can humanity be enriched by that which beggars it of all its wealth." "Fine speeches, forsooth!" cried the worshipper of Science; "you are a moralist, I find, and doubtless a very ignorant person! All this old-fashioned talk of yours belongs to a past age. We have cast aside superstition, we have swept away the old faiths. Our only guide is Reason, our only goal is Knowledge!" "Alas!" returned the other, "it is not the higher but the lower Reason which leads you, and the Knowledge you covet is not that of realities, but of mere seemings. You do not know the real world. You are the dupes of a Phantasm which you take for Substance." With that he passed on, and the man of Science was left in the company of the traveler who had first accosted him. "What person is that?" asked the former, looking after the retreating figure of him who had just spoken. "He is a poet," returned the grave-faced traveler; "we have both of us been beyond the sunset to see the lovely Princess who rules that wonderful country, and we left it together on a journey to this world of yours." "Beyond the sunset!" repeated the other, incredulously. "That is the land of shadows; when the world was younger they used to say the old Gods lived there." "Maybe they live there still,' said the traveler, "for the Princess is of their kith and lineage." "A pretty fable, indeed," responded the scientific votary. "But we know now that all that kind of thing is sheer nonsense, and worse, for it is the basis of the effete old-world sentiment which forms the most formidable obstacle to Progress, and which Science even yet finds it hard to overthrow. But what is that strange singing I hear beneath your cloak?"

It was the bird which the traveler had received from the Princess. He drew it forth, but did not say whose gift it was nor whence it came, because of the contempt with which his companion had spoken of the mystic country and its Rulers. Already he began to waver in his loyalty towards the Princess, and to desire greatly the knowledges of which the stranger told him. For this traveler, though he cared nothing for pleasure, or for the beauty of sensuous things, was greatly taken by the wish to be wise; only he did not rightly know in what wisdom consists. He thought it lay in the acquirement of facts, whereas really it is the power by which facts are transcended.

"That is a foreign bird," observed the scientific man, examining it carefully through his spectacles, "and quite a curiosity. I do not remember having ever seen one like it. The note, too, is peculiar. In some of its tones it reminds me of the nightingale. No doubt it is the descendant of a developed species of a nightingale, carefully selected and artificially bred from one generation to another. Wonderful modifications of species may be obtained in this manner, as experiments with fancy breeds of pigeons has amply proved. Permit me to examine the bill more closely. Yes, yes—a nightingale certainly—and yet—indeed, I ought not to decide in haste. I should greatly like to have the opinion of Professor Effaress on the subject. But what noise is that yonder?"

For just then a terrible hubbub arose among a crowd of people congregated under the portico of a large and magnificent building a little way from the place where the scientific man and the intellectual traveler stood conversing. This building, the facade of which was adorned all over with bas-reliefs of Liberty and Progress, and modern elderly gentlemen in doctors' gowns and laurel wreaths, with rolls of paper and microscopes, was, in fact, a great Scientific Institution, and into it the procession of learned personages whom the travelers had met on their way had entered, followed by a great multitude of admirers and enthusiasts. In this edifice the solemn rites which the votary of Science had described were to be held, and a vast congregation filled its halls. All at once, just as the sacrifices were about to begin, a solitary man arose in the midst of the hushed assembly, and protested, as once of old, by the banks of the far-away Ganges, Siddartha Buddha had protested against the bloody offerings of the priests of Indra. And much after the same manner as Buddha had spoken this man spoke, of the high duty of manhood, of the splendour of justice, of the certainty of retribution, and of the true meaning of Progress and Freedom, the noblest reaches of which are spiritual, transcending all the baser and meaner utilities of the physical nature. And when the high priests of Science, not like the priests of Indra in older tines, answered the prophet disdainfully and without shame, that they knew nothing of any spiritual utilities, because they believed in evolution and held man to be only a developed ape, with no more soul than his ancestor, the stranger responded that he too was an Evolutionist, but that he understood the doctrine quite differently from them, and more after the fashion of the old teachers,—Pythagoras, Plato, Hermes, and Buddha. And that the living and incorruptible Spirit of God was in all things, whether ape or man, whether beast or human; ay, and in the very flowers and grass of the field, and in every element of all that is ignorantly thought to be dead and inert matter. So that the soul of man, he said, is one with the soul that is in all Nature, only that when man is truly human, in him alone the soul becomes self-knowing and self-concentrated; the mirror of Heaven, and the focus of the Divine Light. And he declared, moreover, that the spiritual evolution of which he spoke was not so much promoted by intellectual knowledge as by moral goodness; that it was possible to be a very learned ape indeed, but in no wise to deserve the name of man; and that inasmuch as any person was disposed to sacrifice the higher to the lower reason, and to rank intellectual above spiritual attainment, insomuch that person was still an ape and had not developed humanity.

Now, the stranger who was brave enough to say all this was no other than the traveler poet, and all the time he was speaking, the bird which the Princess had given him lay hid in his bosom and sang to him, clear and sweet, "Courage! courage! these are the ogres and the dragons; fight the good fight; be of a bold heart!" Nor was he astonished or dismayed when the assembly arose with tumult and hooting, and violently thrust him out of the Scientific Institution into the street. And that was the noise which the other traveler and his companion had heard.

But when the greater part of the mob had returned into the building there was left with the poet a little group of men and women whose hearts had been stirred by his protest. And they said to him, "You have spoken well, sir, and have done a noble thing. We are citizens of this place, and we will devote ourselves to giving effect to your words. Doubt not that we shall succeed, though it may be long first, for indeed we will work with a will." Then the poet was glad, because he had not spoken in vain, and he bade them good speed, and went on his way. But the scientific man, who was with the other traveler, heard these last words, and became very angry. "Certainly," he said, "this foolish and ignorant person who has just been turned out of the assembly must have insulted our great leaders! What presumption! what insolence! No one knows what mischief he may not have done by his silly talk! It is deplorable! But see, here comes Professor Effaress, the very man I most wished to see. Professor, let me present this gentleman. He is the owner of a rare and remarkable bird, on which we want your opinion."

The Professor was a very great personage, and his coat was covered all over with decorations and bits of colored ribbon, like those on a kite's tail. Perhaps, like a kite's tail, they weighted and steadied him, and kept him from mounting too high into the clouds. The Professor looked at the bird through his spectacles, and nodded his head sagaciously. "I have seen this species before," he said, "though not often. It belongs to a very ancient family indeed, and I scarcely thought that any specimen of it remained in the present day. Quite a museum bird; and in excellent plumage, too. Sir, I congratulate you."

"You do not, then, consider, Professor," said the traveler, "that this bird has about it anything transcendental—that it is—in fact— not altogether—pardon me the expression—a terrestrial bird?" For he was afraid to say the truth, that the bird really came from beyond the sunset.

The decorated personage was much amused. He laughed pleasantly, and answered in bland tones, "Oh dear, no; I recognise quite well the species to which it belongs. An ancient species, as I have said, and one indeed that Science has done her utmost to extirpate, purposely in part, because it is proved to be a great devastator of the crops, and thus directly injurious to the interests of mankind, and partly by accident, for it has a most remarkable song-note, and scientific men have destroyed all the specimens they have been able to procure, in the hope of discovering the mechanism by which the vocal tones are produced. But, pardon me, are you a stranger in this city, sir?"

"I am," responded the traveler, "and permit me to assure you that I take a lively interest in the scientific and intellectual pursuits with which in this place, I perceive, you are largely occupied."

"We have a Brotherhood of Learning here, sir," returned the Professor; "we are all Progressionists. I trust you will remain with us and take part in our assemblies." But, as he said that, the fairy bird suddenly lifted up his song and warned the traveler, crying in the language of the country beyond the sunset, "Beware! beware! This is an ogre, he will kill you, and mix your bones with his bread! Be warned in time, and fly; fly, if you cannot fight!"

"Dear me," said the Professor, "what a very remarkable note! I am convinced that the structure and disposition of this bird's vocal organs must be unique. Speaking for my scientific brethren, as well as for myself, I may say that we should hold ourselves singularly indebted to you if you would permit us the opportunity of adding so rare a specimen to our national collection. It would be an acquisition, sir, I assure you, for which we would show ourselves profoundly grateful. Indeed, I am sure that the Society to which I have the honor to belong would readily admit to its Fellowship the donor of a treasure so inestimable." As he spoke, he fixed his eyes on the traveler, and bowed with much ceremony and condescension. And the traveler thought what a fine thing it would be to become a Professor, and to be able to wear a great many bits of colored ribbon, and to be immensely learned, and know all the facts of the universe. And, after all, what was a little singing bird, and a fairy Princess, in whose very existence the scientific gentlemen did not in the least believe, and who was, perhaps, really the shadow of a dream? So he bowed in return, and said he was greatly honored; and Professor Effaress took the bird and twisted its neck gravely, and put the little corpse into his pocket. And so the divine and beautiful song of the fairy minstrel was quenched, and instead of it I suppose the traveler got a great deal of learning and many fine decorations on his coat.

But the spirit of the slain bird fled away from that inhospitable city, and went back to the Princess and told her what had befallen.

As for the poet, he went on his way alone into the open country, and saw the peasants in the fields, reaping and gleaning and gathering fruit and corn, for it was harvest time. And he passed through many hamlets and villages, and sometimes he rested a night or two at an inn; and on Sundays he heard the parish parson say prayers and preach in some quaint little Norman or Saxon church.

And at last he came to a brand-new town, where all the houses were Early English, and all the people dressed like ancient Greeks, and all the manners Renaissance, or, perhaps, Gothic. The poet thought they were Gothic, and probably he was right.

In this town the talk was mostly about Art, and many fine things were said in regard to "sweetness and light." Everybody claimed to be an artist of some kind, whether painter, musician, novelist, dramatist, verse-maker, reciter, singer, or what not. But although they seemed so greatly devoted to the Graces and the Muses, it was but the images of the Parnassian Gods that they worshipped. For in the purlieus of this fine town, horrible cruelties and abuses were committed, yet none of the so-called poets lifted a cry of reform. Every morning, early, before daybreak, there came through the streets long and sad processions of meek-eyed oxen and bleating lambs, harried by brutal drovers, with shouts and blows,—terrible processions of innocent creatures going to die under the poleaxe and the knife in order to provide the "pleasures of the table" for dainty votaries of "sweetness and light." Before the fair faint dawn made rosy the eastern sky over the houses, you might have heard on every side the heavy thud of the poleaxe striking down the patient heifer on her knees,—the heifer whose eyes are like the eyes of Here, say the old Greek song-books, that were read and quoted all day in this town of Culture and of Art.

And a little later, going down the byways of the town, you might have seen the gutters running with hot fresh blood, and have met carts laden with gory hides, and buckets filled with brains and blood, going to the factories and tanyards. Young lads spent all their days in the slaughter-houses, dealing violent deaths, witnessing tragedies of carnage, hearing incessant plaintive cries, walking about on clogs among pools of clotting or steamy blood, and breathing the fumes of it. And scarce a mile away from the scene of all these loathsome and degrading sights, sounds, and odors, you might have found fastidious and courtly gentlemen, and ladies all belaced and bejewelled, sentimentalising over their "aspic de foie gras," or their "cotelettes a la jardiniere," or some other euphemism for the dead flesh which could not, without pardonable breach of good breeding, be called by its plain true name in their presence.

And when the poet reminded them of this truth, and spoke to them of the demoralisation to which, by their habits, they daily subjected many of their fellowmen; when he drew for them graphic pictures of the slaughteryard, and of all the scenes of suffering and tyranny that led up to it and ensued from it, they clapped their hands to their ears, and cried out that he was a shockingly coarse person, and quite too horribly indelicate for refined society. Because, indeed, they cared only about a surface and outside refinement, and not a whit for that which is inward and profound. For beauty of being—they had neither desire nor power of reverence; all their enthusiasm was spent over forms and words and appearances of beauty. In them the senses were quickened, but not the heart, nor the reason. Therefore the spirit of the Reformer was not in them, but the spirit of the Dilettante only.

And the poet was grieved and angry with them, because every true poet is a Reformer; and he went forth and spoke aloud in their public places and rebuked the dwellers in that town. But except a few curiosity hunters and some idle folks who wanted higher wages and less work, and thought he might help them to get what they wished for, nobody listened to him. But they went in crowds to see a conjurer, and to hear a man who lectured on blue china, and another who made them a long oration about intricate and obscure texts in a certain old dramatic book. And I think that in those days, if it had not been for the sweet and gracious song of the fairy bird which he carried about always in his bosom, the poet would have become very heartsick and desponding indeed. I do not quite know what it was that the bird sang, but it was something about the certainty of the advent of wisdom, and of the coming of the perfect day; and the burden of the song was hope for all the nations of the earth. Because every beautiful and wise thought that any man conceives is the heritage of the whole race of men, and an earnest and foregleam of what all men will some day inviolably hold for true. And forasmuch as poets are the advanced guard of the marching army of humanity, therefore they are necessarily the first discoverers and proclaimers of the new landscapes and ranges of Duties and Rights that rise out of the horizon, point after point, and vista after vista, along the line of progress. For the sonnet of the poet today is to furnish the keynote of the morrow's speech in Parliament, as that which yesterday was song is today the current prose of the hustings, the pulpit, and the market. Wherefore, O poet, take heart for the world; thou, in whose utterance speaks the inevitable Future; who art thyself God's prophecy and covenant of what the race at large shall one day be! Sing thy songs, utter thine whole intent, recount thy vision; though today no one heed thee, thou hast nevertheless spoken, and the spoken word is not lost. Every true thought lives, because the Spirit of God is in it, and when time is ripe it will incarnate itself in action. Thou, thou art the creator, the man of thought; thou art the pioneer of the ages!

Somewhat on this wise sang the fairy bird, and thereby the poet was comforted, and took courage, and lifted up his voice and his apocalypse. And though few people cared to hear, and many jeered, and some rebuked, he minded only that all he should say might be well said, and be as perfect and wise and worthy as he could make it. And when he had finished his testimony, he went forth from the gates of the town, and began once more to traverse the solitudes of moor and forest.

But now the winter had set in over the land, and the wastes were bleak, and the trees stood like pallid ghosts, sheeted and shrouded in snow. And the north wind moaned across the open country, and the traveler grew cold and weary. Then he spoke to the bird and said, "Bird, when I and my companions set out on our journey from the land beyond the sunset, the Princess promised us each a guide, who should bring us back in safety if only we would faithfully heed his monitions. Where then is this guide? for hitherto I have walked alone, and have seen no leader.

And the bird answered, "O poet, I, whom thou bearest about in thy bosom, am that guide and monitor! I am thy director, thine angel, and thine inward light. And to each of thy companions a like guide was vouchsafed, but the man of appetite drove away his monitor, and the man of intellect did even worse, for he gave over to death his friend and his better self. Gold against dross, the wisdom of the Gods against the knowledges of men! But thou, poet, art the child of the Gods, and thou alone shalt again behold with joy the land beyond the sunset, and the face of Her whose true servitor and knight thou art!"

Then the traveler was right glad, and his heart was lifted up, and as he went he sang. But, for all that, the way grew steeper to his feet, and the icy air colder to his face; and on every hand there were no longer meadows and orchards full of laboring folk, but glittering snow-wreaths, and diamond-bright glaciers, shining hard and keen against the deeps of darkening space; and at times the roar of a distant avalanche shook the atmosphere about him, and then died away into the silence out of which the sound had come. Peak above peak of crystal-white mountain ranges rose upon his sight, massive, and still, and awful, terrible affirmations of the verity of the Ideal. For this world of colossal heights and fathomless gulfs, of blinding snows, of primeval silence, of infinite revelation, of splendid lights upon manifold summits of opal, topaz, and sardony, all seemed to him the witness and visible manifestation of his most secret and dreadful thoughts. He had seen these things in his visions, he had shaped them in his hidden reveries, he had dared to believe that such a region as this might be—nay, ought to be— if the universe were of Divine making. And now it burst upon him, an apocalypse of giant glories, an empire of absolute being, independent and careless of human presence, affirming itself eternally to its own immeasurable solitudes.

"I have reached the top and pinnacle of life," cried the poet; "this is the world wherein all things are made!"

And now, indeed, save for the fairy bird, he trod his path alone. Now and then great clouds of mist swept down from the heights, or rose from the icy gorges, and wrapped him in their soft gray folds, hiding from his sight the glittering expanse around him, and making him afraid. Or, at times, he beheld his own shadow, a vast and portentous Self, projected on the nebulous air, and looming in his pathway, a solitary monster threatening him with doom. Or yet again, there arose before him, multiplied in bewildering eddies of fog-wreath, a hundred spectral selves, each above and behind the other, like images repeated in reverberating mirrors—his own form, his own mien, his own garb and aspect—appalling in their omnipresence, maddening in their grotesque immensity as the goblins of a fever dream. But when first the traveler beheld this sight, and shrank at it, feeling for his sword, the fairy bird at his breast sang to him, "Fear not, this is the Chimaera of whom the Princess spoke. You have passed unhurt the sirens, the ogres, and the hydra-headed brood of plain and lowland; now meet with courage this phantom of the heights. Even now thou standest on the confines of the land beyond the sunset; these are the dwellers on the border, the spectres who haunt the threshold of the farther world. They are but shadows of thyself, reflections cast upon the mists of the abyss, phantoms painted on the veil of the sanctuary. Out of the void they arise, the offspring of Unreason and of the Hadean Night."

Then a strong wind came down from the peaks of the mountains like the breathing of a God; and it rent the clouds asunder, and scattered the fog wreaths, and blew the phantoms hither and thither like smoke; and like smoke they were extinguished and spent against the crags of the pass. And after that the poet cared no more for them, but went on his way with a bold heart, until he had left behind and below him the clouds and mists of the ravines among the hills, and stood on the topmost expanse of dazzling snow, and beheld once more the golden gate of the Land that lies beyond the Sun.

But of his meeting with the Princess, and of the gladness and splendour of their espousals, and of all the joy that he had, is not for me to tell, for these things, which belong to the chronicles of that fairy country, no mortal hand in words of human speech is in any wise able to relate. All that I certainly know and can speak of with plainness is this, that he obtained the fulness of his heart's desire, and beyond all hope, or knowledge, or understanding of earth, was blessed for evermore.

And now I have finished the story of a man who saw and followed his Ideal, who loved and prized it, and clave to it above and through all lesser mundane things. Of a man whom the senses could not allure, nor the craving for knowledge, nor the lust of power, nor the blast of spiritual vanity, shake from his perfect rectitude and service. Of a man who, seeing the good and the beautiful way, turned not aside from it, nor yielded a step to the enemy; in whose soul the voice of the inward Divinity no rebuke, nor derision, nor neglect could quench; who chose his part and abode by it, seeking no reconciliation with the world, not weakly repining because his faith in the justice of God distanced the sympathies of common men." Every poet has it in him to imagine, to comprehend, and desire such a life as this; he who lives it canonises his genius, and, to the topmost manhood of the Seer, adds the Divinity of Heroism.

IV. A Turn of Luck

"Messieurs, faites votre jeu! . . . Le jeu est fait! . . . Rien ne va plus! . . . Rouge gagne et la couleur! . . . Rouge gagne, la couleur perd! . . . Rouge perd et la couleur! . . . "

Such were the monotonous continually recurring sentences, always spoken in the same impassive tones, to which I listened as I stood by the tables in the gaming-rooms of Monte Carlo. Such are the sentences to which devotees of the fickle goddess, Chance, listen hour after hour as the day wears itself out from early morning to late evening in that beautiful, cruel, enchanting earthly paradise, whose shores are washed by the bluest sea in the world, whose gardens are dotted with globes of golden fruit, and plumed with feathery palms, and where, as you wander in and out among the delicious shadowy foliage, you hear, incessantly, the sound of guns, and may, now and then, catch sight of some doomed creature with delicate white breast and broken wing, dropping, helpless and bleeding, into the still dark waters below the cliff. A wicked place! A cruel place! Heartless, bitter, pitiless, inhuman! And yet, so beautiful!

I stood, on this particular afternoon, just opposite a young man seated at one of the rouge et noir tables. As my glance wandered from face to face among the players, it was arrested by his,—a singularly pallid, thin, eager face; remarkably eager, even in such a place and in such company as this. He seemed about twenty- five, but he had the bowed and shrunken look of an invalid, and from time to time he coughed terribly, the ominous cough of a person with lungs half consumed by tubercle. He had not the air of a man who gambles for pleasure; nor, I thought, that of a spendthrift or a "ne'er-do-weel;" disease, not dissipation, had hollowed his cheeks and set his hands trembling, and the unnatural light in his eyes was born of fever rather than of greed. He played anxiously but not excitedly, seldom venturing on a heavy stake, and watching the game with an intentness which no incident diverted. Suddenly I saw a young girl make her way through the throng towards him. She was plainly dressed, and had a sweet, sad face and eyes full of tenderness. She touched him on the shoulder, stooped over him, and kissed him in the frankest, simplest manner possible on the forehead. "Viens," she whispered, "je m'etouffe ici, il fait si frais dehors; sortons." He did not answer; his eyes were on the cards. "Rouge perd, et la couleur," said the hard official voice.

With a sigh, he rose, coughed, passed his hand over his eyes, and took his wife's arm.—(I felt sure she was his wife.) They passed slowly through the rooms together, and I lost sight of them. But not of his face—nor of hers. Sitting by the fountain outside the gaming saloons half an hour afterwards, I fell to musing about this strange couple. So young,—she scarcely more than a child, and he so ill and wasted! He had played with the manner of an old habitue, and she seemed used to finding him at the tables and leading him away. I made up my mind that I had stumbled on a romance, and resolved to hunt it down. At the table d'hote dinner in my hotel that evening I met a friend from Nice to whom I confided my curiosity. "I know," said he, "the young people of whom you speak; they are patients of Dr S. of Monaco, one of my most intimate acquaintances. He told me their story." "They," I interpolated,—" is the wife, then, also ill?" My friend smiled a little. "Not ill exactly, perhaps," he answered. "But you must have seen,—she will very shortly be a mother. And she is very young and delicate." "Tell me their story," I said, "since you know it. It is romantic, I am certain." "It is sad," he said, "and sadness suffices, I suppose, to constitute romance. The young man's name is Georges Saint-Cyr, and his family were `poor relations' of an aristocratic house. I say `were,' because they are all dead,— his father, mother, and three sisters. The father died of tubercle, so did his daughters; the son, you see, inherits the same disease and will also die of it at no very distant time. Georges Saint-Cyr never found anybody to take him up in life. He was quite a lad when he lost his widowed mother, and his health was, even then, so bad and fitful that be could never work. He tried his best; but what chef can afford to employ a youth who is always sending in doctor's certificates to excuse his absence from his desk, and breaking down with headache or swooning on the floor in office-hours? He was totally unfit to earn his living, and the little money he had would not suffice to keep him decently. Moreover, in his delicate condition he positively needed comforts which to other lads would have been superfluous. Still he managed to struggle on for some five years, getting copying-work and what-not to do in his own rooms, till he had contrived, by the time he was twenty-two, to save a little money. His idea was to enter the medical profession and earn a livelihood by writing for scientific journals, for he had wits and was not without literary talent. He was lodging then in a cheap quarter of Paris not far from the Ecole de Medecine. Well, the poor boy passed his baccalaureat and entered on his first year. He got through that pretty well, but then came the hospital work; and then, once more he broke down. The rising at six o'clock on bitter cold winter mornings, the going out into the bleak early air sometimes thick with snow or sleet, the long attendance day after day in unwholesome wards and foetid post-mortem rooms; the afternoons spent over dissecting,—all these things contributed to bring about a catastrophe. He fell sick and took to his bed, and as he was quite alone in the world, his tutor, who was a kind- hearted man, undertook to see him through his illness, both as physician and as friend. And when, after a few weeks, Georges was able to get about again, the professor, seeing how lonely the young man was, asked him to spend his Sundays and spare evenings with himself and his family in their little apartment au ca'nquieme of the rue Cluny. For the professor was, of course, poor, working for five francs a lesson to private pupils; and a much more modest sum for class lectures such as those which Georges attended. But all this mattered nothing to Georges. He went gladly the very next Sunday to Dr. Le Noir's, and there he met the professor's daughter—whom you have seen. She was only just seventeen, and prettier then than she is now I doubt not, for her face is anxious and sorrowful now, and anxiety and sorrow are not becoming. You don't wonder that the young student fell in love with her. The father, engrossed in his work, did not see what was going on, and so Pauline's heart was won before the mischief could be stopped. The young people themselves went to him hand in hand one evening and told him all about it. Madame Le Noir had long been dead, and the professor had two sons studying medicine. His daughter was, perhaps, rather in his way; he loved her much, but she was growing fast into womanhood, and he did not quite know what to do with her. Saint-Cyr was well-born and he was clever. If only his health were to take a turn for the better, all might go well. But then, if not? He looked at the young man's pale face and remembered what his stethoscope had revealed. Still, in such an early stage these physical warnings often came to nothing. Rest, and fresh air, and happiness, might set him up and make a healthy man of him yet. So he gave a preliminary assent to the engagement, but forbade the young people to consider the affair settled—for the present. He wanted to see how Georges got on. It was early spring then. Hope and love and the April sunshine agreed with the young man. He was much stronger by June, and did well at the hospital and at his work. He had reached the end of his fin d'aunee examinations; a year's respite was before him now before beginning to pass for his doctorate. Le Noir thought that if he could pass the next winter in the south of France he would be quite set up, and lost no time in imparting this idea to Georges. But Georges was not just then in funds; his time had been lately wholly taken up with his studies, and he had been unable to do any literary hacking. When he told the professor that he could not afford to spend a winter on the Riviera, Le Noir looked at him fixedly a minute or two and then said:— 'Pauline's dot will be 10,000 francs. It comes to her from her mother. With care that ought to keep you both till you have taken your doctorate and can earn money for yourself. Will you marry Pauline this autumn and take her with you to the south?' Well, you can fancy whether this proposal pleased Georges or not. At first he refused, of course; he would not take Pauline's money; it was her's; he would wait till he could earn money of his own. But the professor was persuasive, and when he told his daughter of the discussion, she went privately into her father's study where Georges sat, pretending to read chemistry, and settled the matter. So the upshot of it was that late in October, Pauline became Madame Saint-Cyr, and started with her husband for the Riviera.

"The winter turned out a bitter one. Bitter and wild and treacherous over the whole of Europe. Snow where snow had not been seen time out of mind; biting murderous winds that nothing could escape. My friend Dr S. says the Riviera is not always kind to consumptives, even when at its best; and this particular season saw it at its worst. Georges Saint-Cyr caught a violent chill one evening at St Raphael, whither he and his wife had gone for the sake of the cheapness rather than to any of the larger towns on the littoral; and in a very short time his old malady was on him again,—the fever, the cough, the weakness,—in short, a fresh poussee, as the doctors say. Pauline nursed him carefully till March set in; then he recovered a little, but he was fair from convalescent. She wrote hopefully to her father; so did Georges; indeed both the young man and his wife, ignorant of the hold which the disease had really got upon him, thought things to be a great deal better than they actually were. But as days went on and the cough continued, they made up their minds that St Raphael did not suit Georges, and resolved to go on to Nice. March was already far advanced; Nice would not be expensive now. So they went, but still Georges got no better. He even began to get weaker; the cough `tore' him, he said, and he leaned wearily on his wife's arm when they walked out together. Clearly he would not be able to return to Paris and to work that spring. Pauline, too, was not well, the long nursing had told on her, and she had, besides, her own ailments, for already the prospect of motherhood had defined itself. She wrote to her father that Georges was still poorly and that they should not return home till May. But before the first ten days of April had passed, something of the true state of the case began to dawn on Saint-Cyr. `I shall never again be strong enough to work hard,' he said to himself, `and I must work hard if I am to pass my doctorate examinations. Meantime, all Pauline's dot will be spent. I may have to wait months before I can do any consecutive work; perhaps, even, I shall be unable to make a living by writing. I am unfit for any study. How can I get money—and get it quickly—for her sake and for the child's?'

"Then the thought of the tables at Monte Carlo flashed into his mind. Eight thousand francs of Pauline's dot remained; too small a sum in itself to be of any permanent use, but enough to serve as capital for speculation in rouge et noir. With good luck such a sum might produce a fortune. The idea caught him and fascinated his thoughts sleeping and waking. In his dreams he beheld piles of gold shining beside him on the green cloth, and by day as he wandered feebly along the Promenade des Anglais with Pauline he grew silent, feeding his sick heart with this new fancy. One day he said to his wife:— 'Let us run over to Monte Carlo and see the playing; it will amuse us; and the gardens are lovely. You will be delighted with the place. Everybody says it is the most beautiful spot on the Riviera.' So they went, and were charmed, but Georges did not play that day. He stood by the tables and watched, while Pauline, too timid to venture into the saloons, and a little afraid of 'le jeu,' sat by the great fountain in the garden outside the casino. Georges declared that evening as they sat over their tea at Nice that he had taken a fancy for beautiful Monaco, and that he would rather finish the month of April there than at Nice. Pauline assented at once, and the next day they removed to the most modest lodgings they could find within easy access of the gardens. Then; very warily and gently, Saint-Cyr unfolded to Pauline his new-born hopes. She was terribly alarmed at first and sobbed piteously. 'It is so wicked to gamble, Georges,' she said;—' no blessing can follow such a plan as yours. And I dare not tell papa about it.' 'It would be wicked, no doubt,' said Georges, 'to play against one's friend or one's neighbor, as they do in clubs and private circles, because in such cases if one is lucky, someone else is beggared, and the money one puts in one's pocket leaves the other players so much the poorer. But here it is quite another thing. We play against a great firm, an administration, whom our individual successes do not affect, and which makes a trade of the whole concern. Scruples are out of place under such circumstances. Playing at Monte Carlo hurts nobody but oneself, and is not nearly so reprehensible as the legitimate "business" that goes on daily at the Bourse.' 'Still,' faltered Pauline, `such horrid persons do play, —such men,—such women! It is not respectable.' `It is not respectable for most people certainly,' he said, `because other ways of earning are open to them. The idle come here, the dissolute, the good-for-nothings. I know all that. But we are quite differently placed; and have no other means of getting money to live with. At those tables, Pauline, I shall be working for you as sincerely and honestly as though I were buying up shares or investing in foreign railroads. It is the name and tradition of the thing that frightens you. Look it in the face and you will own that it is simply . . . speculation.' `Georges,' said Pauline, you know best. Do as you like, dear; I understand nothing, and you were always clever.'

"So Saint-Cyr had his way, and went to work accordingly, without loss of time, a little shyly at first, not daring to venture on any considerable stake. So he remained for a week at the roulette tables; because at the rouge et noir one can only play with gold. The week came to an end and found him neither richer nor poorer. Then he grew bolder and ventured into the deeper water. He played on rouge et noir, with luck the first day or two, but after that fortune turned dead against him. He said nothing of it to Pauline, who came every day into the rooms at intervals to seek him and say a few words, sometimes leading him out for air when he looked weary, or beguiling him away on pretence of her own need for companionship or for a walk. No doubt the poor girl suffered much; anxiety, loneliness, and a lingering shame which she could not suppress, paled her cheeks, and made her thin and careworn. She dared not ask how things were going, but her husband's silence and the increased sickliness of his aspect set her heart beating heavily with dread. Alone in her room she must have wept much during all this sad time, for my friend Dr S. says that when she made her first call upon his services he noted the signs of tears upon her face, and taxed her with the fact, getting from her the reply that she 'often cried.'

"Little by little, being a kind and sympathetic man, he drew from her the story I have told you. Georges became his patient also, but was always reticent in regard to `le jeu.' Dr S. tried to dissuade him from visiting the tables, on the ground that the atmosphere in the saloons would prove poisonous to him and perhaps even fatal. But although, in deference to this counsel, the young man shortened somewhat the duration of his `sittings,' and spent more time under the trees with Pauline, he did not by any means abandon, his `speculation,' hoping always, no doubt, as all losers hope, to see the luck turn and to take revenge on Fortune."

"And the luck has not turned yet in Saint-Cyr's case, I suppose?" said I.

"No," answered my friend. "I fear things are going very ill with him and poor Pauline's dot."

As he spoke he rose from the dinner-table, and we strolled out together upon the moonlight terrace of the hotel. "In ten minutes," said I, "my train starts. I am going back to Nice tonight. Despite all its loveliness, Monte Carlo is hateful to me, and I do not care to sleep under its shadow. But before I go, I have a favour to ask of you. Let me know the sequel of the story you have told me tonight. I want to know how it ends—in triumph or in tragedy. Dr S. will always be able to keep you informed whether you remain here or not. Write to me as soon as there is anything to tell, and you will do me a signal kindness. You see you are such an admirable raconteur that you have interested me irresistibly in your subject and must pay the penalty of talent!"

He laughed, broke off the laugh in a sigh, then shook hands with me, and we parted.

About two months later, after my return to England, I had from my friend the following letter:—

"You have, I do not doubt, retained your interest in the fortunes of the two young people who so much attracted you at the tables last April. Well, I have just seen my friend Dr S. in Lyons, and he has related to me the saddest tale you can imagine concerning Georges and Pauline. Here it is, just as he gave it, and while it is fresh in my memory. It seems that all through the month of April and well into May, Saint-Cyr's ill luck stuck to him. He lost daily, and at last only a very slender remnant of his wife's money was left to play with. Week by week, too, he grew more wasted and feeble, fading with his fading fortune. As for Pauline, although she did not complain about herself, Dr S. saw reason to feel much anxiety on her account. Grief and sickened hope and the wear of the terrible life she and Georges were leading combined to break down her strength. Phthisis, too, although not a contagious malady in the common sense of the term, is apt to exercise on debilitated persons constantly exposed to the companionship of its victims an extremely baleful effect, and to this danger Pauline was daily and nightly subjected. She became feverish, a sensation of unwonted languor took possession of her, and sleep, nevertheless, became almost impossible. Georges, engrossed in his play, observed but little the deterioration of his wife's health; or, perhaps, attributed it to her condition and to nervousness in regard to her approaching trial. Things were in this state, when, one day towards the close of May Georges took his customary seat at the rouge et noir table. The weather had suddenly become extremely hot, and the crowd in the `salles de jeu' had considerably diminished. Only serious and veteran habitues were left, staking their gold, for the most part, with the coolness and resolution of long experience. Pauline remained in her room, she felt too ill to rise, and attributed her indisposition to the heat. Very sick at heart, George entered the gaming-rooms alone, and laid out on the green cloth the last of his capital. Then occurred one of those strange and compete reversions of luck that come to very few men. Georges won continuously, without a break, throughout the entire day. After an hour or two of steady success, he grew elated, and began to stake large sums,— with a recklessness that might have appalled others than the old stagers who sat beside him. But his temerity brought golden returns, every stake reaped a fruitful harvest, and louis d'or accumulated in tall piles at his elbow. Before the rooms closed he had become a rich man, and had won back Pauline's dowry forty times over. Men turned to look at him as he left the tables, his face white with fatigue, his eyes burning like live coals, and his gait unsteady as a drunkard's. Outside in the open air, everything appeared to him like a dream. He could not collect his thoughts; his brain whirled; he had eaten nothing all day, fearing to quit his place lest he should change his luck or lose some good coup, and now extreme faintness overcame him. Stooping over the great basin of the fountain in front of the Casino he bathed his face with his hands, and eagerly drew in the cool evening breeze of the Mediterranean, just sweeping up sweet and full of refreshment over the parched rock of Monte Carlo. Then he made his way home, climbed with toil the high narrow staircase, and entered the little apartment he shared with Pauline. In the sitting room he paused a minute, poured out a glass of wine and drank it at a draught, to give himself courage to tell her his good news like a man. His hand turned the key of his bedroom; his heart beat so wildly that its throbbing deafened him; he could not hear his own voice as he cried: `Pauline—darling! —we are rich! my luck has turned!' . . . But then he stopped, stricken by a blow worse than the stroke of death. Before him stood Dr S., and a woman whom he did not recognise, bending over the bed upon which Pauline lay, pallid and still, with hands folded upon her breast. Georges flung his porte-monnaie, stuffed with notes, upon the foot of the bed, and sank down on his knees beside it, his eyes fixed upon his young wife's face. Dr S. touched him upon the shoulder.

Du courage, Saint-Cyr,' he whispered. `She has gone . . . first.' The kindly words meant that the separation would not be for long. The woman in charge by the couch of the dead girl wept aloud, but there were no tears yet in the eyes of Georges. `And the child?' he asked at length, vaguely comprehending what had happened. They lifted the sheet gently, and showed him a little white corpse lying beside its mother. 'I am glad the child is dead, too,' said Georges Saint-Cyr.

"He would not have her buried by the Mediterranean;—no—nor would he let the corpse be taken home for burial. The desire for flight was upon him, and he said he must carry his dead with him till be himself should die. That night he left Monte Carlo for Rome, bearing with him those dear remains of wife and child; and the good doctor seeing his desperation and full of pity for so vast a woe, went with him. 'Perhaps,' he told me, `had I not gone, Georges would not himself have reached Rome alive.' They traveled night and day, for the young man would not rest an instant. His design was to have the body of his wife burned in the crematorium of the Eternal City, and Dr S. was, fortunately, able to obtain for him the fulfilment of his desire. Then Saint-Cyr enclosed the ashes of his beloved in a little silver box, slung it about his neck and bade his friend farewell. I asked the doctor where he went. `Northward,' he answered, `but I did not ask his plans. He gave me no address; he had money in plenty, and it matters little where he went, for death was in his face as he wrung my hand at parting, and he cannot live to see the summer out."

That was the end of the letter. And for my part, with the sole exception of Georges Saint-Cyr, I never heard of any man who became rich over the tables of Monte Carlo.

V. Noemi; or, the Silver Ribbon