ithin, and mass was read.--

Years rolled by.

The bones and legs fell asunder. They stood up the skulls, and with
them, formed the whole outside wall of a church. There he stood in the
burning sunshine; there were so many, many dead, they did not know
their names, much less his.

See, something living moved in the sunshine in the two eye sockets;
what was that? A brilliant lizard was running about in the hollow
skull, slipping in and out of the large, empty sockets. This was now
the life in the head, where once elevated thoughts, brilliant dreams,
love for art and the magnificent had been rife; from which hot tears
had rolled and where the hope of immortality had lived. The lizard
leaped out and disappeared; the skull crumbled away and became dust to
dust.--

Centuries passed. Unchanged, the star, clear and large, beamed on as
it had done for centuries. The atmosphere shone with a red rosy hue,
fresh as roses, flaming as blood.

Where there had once been a little street with the remains of an old
temple, now stood a convent; a grave was dug in the garden, for a
young nun had died, and she was to be lowered in the earth at this
early hour of the morning. The spade struck against a stone which
appeared of a dazzling whiteness--the white marble came forth--it
rounded into a shoulder;--they used the spade with care, and a female
head became visible--butterfly wings. They raised from the grave, in
which the young nun was to be laid on this rosy morning, a gloriously
beautiful Psyche-form, chiseled from white marble.

"How magnificent! How perfect a master work!" they said. "Who can the
artist be?" He was unknown. None knew him, save the clear star, which
had been beaming for centuries; it knew the course of his earthly
life, his trials, his failings; it knew that he was: "but a man!" But
he was dead, dispersed as dust must and shall be; but the result of
his best efforts, the glory which pointed out the divine within him,
the Psyche, which never dies, which surpasses in brightness, all
earthly renown, this remained, was seen, acknowledged, admired and
beloved.

The clear morning star in the rosy tinted sky, cast its most radiant
beams upon the Psyche, and upon the smile of happiness about the mouth
and eyes of the admiring ones, who beheld the soul, chiseled in the
marble block.

That which is earthly passes away, and is forgotten; only the star in
the infinite knows of it. That which is heavenly surpasses renown