vealed to set his feet therein. But with
this paragraph all indecision soon came to an end. He felt there a clear
call, to neglect which would be to have seen the light and not to have
followed it, ever for him the most tragic error to be made in life. His
natural predisposition towards it was too great for him to do other than
trust this new revelation; and now he must gird himself for 'the
sacrifice which truth always demands.'

But, sacrifice! of what and for what? An undefined social warmth he was
beginning to feel in the world, some meretricious ambition, and a great
friendship--to which in the long run would he not be all the truer by
the great new power he was to win? If hand might no longer spring to
hand, and friendship vie in little daily acts of brotherhood, might he
not, afar on his mountain-top, keep loving watch with clearer eyes upon
the dear life he had left behind, and be its vigilant fate? Surely! and
there was nothing worth in life that would not gain by such a devotion.
All life's good was of the spirit, and to give that a clearer shining,
even in one soul, must help the rest. For if its light, shining, as now,
through the grimy horn-lantern of the body, in narrow lanes and along
the miasmatic flats of the world, even so helped men, how much more must
it, rising above that earthly fume, in a hidden corner no longer, but
in the open heaven, a star above the city. Sacrifice! yes, it was just
such a tug as a man in the dark warmth of morning sleep feels it to
leave the pillow. The mountain-tops of morning gleam cold and bare: but
O! when, staff in hand, he is out amid the dew, the larks rising like
fountains above him, the gorse bright as a golden fleece on the
hill-side, and all the world a shining singing vision, what thought of
the lost warmth then? What warmth were not well lost for this keen
exhilarated sense in every nerve, in limb, in eye, in brain? What potion
has sleep like this crystalline air it almost takes one's breath to
drink, of such a maddening chastity is its grot-cool sparkle? What
intoxication can she give us for this larger better rapture? So did
Narcissus, an old Son of the Morning, figure to himself the struggle,
and pronounce 'the world well lost.'

But I feel as I write how little I can give the Reader of all the
'splendid purpose in his eyes' as he made this resolve. Perhaps I am the
less able to do so as--let me confess--I also shared his dream. One
could hardly come near him