t to drink like wine. So comes
it, that this day I taste through you the entrancing illusion of things,
and that the soul of woods and streams, of sky and earth, and living
shapes, penetrates my breast.

"And lo! I am a miserable man, because I have followed after you, Prince
of men!"

And Giovanni gazed at his companion, who stood there beautiful as day
and night. And he said to him:

"Through you it is I suffer, and I love you. I love you because you are
my misery and my pride, my joy and my sorrow, the splendour and the
cruelty of things created, because you are desire and speculation, and
because you have made me like unto yourself. For verily your promise in
the Garden, in the dawn of this world's days, was not vain, and I have
tasted the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, O Satan."

Presently Giovanni resumed again.

"I know, I see, I feel, I will, I suffer. And I love you for all the ill
you have done me. I love you, because you have undone me."

And, leaning on the Archangel's shoulder, the man wept bitterly.

THE MYSTIC BLOOD

TO FELIX JEANTET

THE MYSTIC BLOOD

_La Bocca sua non diceva se non Jesu e Caterina, e cosi dicendo
ricevatti el capo nelle mani mie, fermando l'occhio nella Divina
Bonta, e dicendo: lo voglio...._

(_Le lettere di S. Caterina da Siena._--xcvii, Gigli e
Burlamacchi.)[1]

[Footnote 1: "His mouth spake no word but only Jesus and Caterina, and
with these words I received his head in my two hands, as he closed his
eyes in the Divine Goodness, and said: I will...." (_Letters of St.
Catherine of Sienna_--xcvii, ed. Gigli e Burlamacchi.)]

The good town of Sienna was like a sick man that seeks vainly for a
restful place in his bed, and thinks, by turning about and about, to
cheat his pain. Again and again had she changed the government of the
Republic, which passed from the Consuls to the Assemblies of the
Burghers, and, originally entrusted to the Nobles, was subsequently
exercised by the money-changers, drapers, apothecaries, furriers,
silk-mercers and all such citizens as were concerned with the superior
arts and crafts. But these worthies having shown themselves weak and
self-seeking, the People expelled them in their turn and entrusted the
sovereign power to the petty artisans. In the year 1368 of the glorious
Incarnation of the Son of God, the Signory was composed of fourteen
Magistrates chosen from among the hosiers, butchers, locksmiths,
sh