emplation of himself in nature, to his self-communion, to the dreams
which do not contradict his opinion of himself. The momentary creator
perishes in the dreamer. He gives up life, adventure, love, war, and he
finally surrenders his art. No more poetry for him.

It is thus that a character feeble for action, but mystic in
imagination, acts in the petulance of youth when it is pushed into a
clashing, claiming world. In this mood a year passes by in vague
content. Yet a little grain of conscience makes him sour. He is vexed
that his youth is gone with all its promised glow, pleasure and action;
and the vexation is suddenly deepened by seeing a great change in the
aspect of nature. "What," he thinks, when he sees the whole valley
filled with Mincio in flood, "can Nature in this way renew her youth,
and not I? Alas! I cannot so renew myself; youth is over." But if youth
be dead, manhood remains; and the curiosity and individuality of the age
stir in him again. "I must find," he thinks, "the fitting kind of life.
I must make men feel what I am. But how; what do I want for this? I want
some outward power to draw me forth and upward, as the moon draws the
waters; to lead me to a life in which I may know mankind, in order that
I may take out of men all I need to make _myself_ into perfect form--a
full poet, able to impose my genius on mankind, and to lead them where I
will. What force can draw me out of these dreaming solitudes in which I
fail to realise my art? Why, there is none so great as love. Palma who
smiled on me, she shall be my moon." At that moment, when he is again
thrilled with curiosity concerning life, again desirous to realise his
individuality in the world of men, a message comes from Palma. "Come,
there is much for you to do--come to me at Verona." She lays a political
career before him. "Take the Kaiser's cause, you and I together; build a
new Italy under the Emperor." And Sordello is fired by the thought, not
as yet for the sake of doing good to man, but to satisfy his curiosity
in a new life, and to edify his individual soul into a perfection
unattained as yet. "I will go," he thinks, "and be the spirit in this
body of mankind, wield, animate, and shape the people of Italy, make
them the form in which I shall express myself. It is not enough to act,
in imagination, all that man is, as I have done. I will now make men act
by the force of my spirit: North Italy shall be my body, and thus I
shall realise mysel