vered
over midnight adventures, cut short by the cool thrust of a jealous
blade, as he saw a mediaeval dagger with a hilt wrought like lace, and
spots of rust like splashes of blood upon it.

India and its religions took the shape of the idol with his peaked cap
of fantastic form, with little bells, clad in silk and gold. Close by,
a mat, as pretty as the bayadere who once lay upon it, still gave out
a faint scent of sandal wood. His fancy was stirred by a goggle-eyed
Chinese monster, with mouth awry and twisted limbs, the invention of
a people who, grown weary of the monotony of beauty, found an
indescribable pleasure in an infinite variety of ugliness. A salt-cellar
from Benvenuto Cellini's workshop carried him back to the Renaissance
at its height, to the time when there was no restraint on art or morals,
when torture was the sport of sovereigns; and from their councils,
churchmen with courtesans' arms about them issued decrees of chastity
for simple priests.

On a cameo he saw the conquests of Alexander, the massacres of Pizarro
in a matchbox, and religious wars disorderly, fanatical, and cruel, in
the shadows of a helmet. Joyous pictures of chivalry were called up by
a suit of Milanese armor, brightly polished and richly wrought; a
paladin's eyes seemed to sparkle yet under the visor.

This sea of inventions, fashions, furniture, works of art and fiascos,
made for him a poem without end. Shapes and colors and projects
all lived again for him, but his mind received no clear and perfect
conception. It was the poet's task to complete the sketches of the
great master, who had scornfully mingled on his palette the hues of the
numberless vicissitudes of human life. When the world at large at last
released him, when he had pondered over many lands, many epochs, and
various empires, the young man came back to the life of the individual.
He impersonated fresh characters, and turned his mind to details,
rejecting the life of nations as a burden too overwhelming for a single
soul.

Yonder was a sleeping child modeled in wax, a relic of Ruysch's
collection, an enchanting creation which brought back the happiness of
his own childhood. The cotton garment of a Tahitian maid next fascinated
him; he beheld the primitive life of nature, the real modesty of naked
chastity, the joys of an idleness natural to mankind, a peaceful fate
by a slow river of sweet water under a plantain tree that bears its
pleasant manna without the toi