worlds beyond him not seen by his fellows.

Weary of life he may be; of life material, and full of subtlety; of
passion, of pleasure, of pain; of the kisses that burn, of the laugh
that rings hollow, of the honey that so soon turns to gall, of the
sickly fatigues, and the tired, cloyed hunger, that are the portion of
men upon earth. Weary of these he may be; but still if the gods have
breathed on him, and made him mad with the madness that men have called
genius, there will be that in him greater than himself, which he
knows,--and cannot know without some fierce wrench and pang,--will be
numbed and made impotent, and drift away, lost for evermore, into that
eternal night, which is all that men behold of death.

* * *

The grass of the Holy River gathers perfume from the marvellous suns,
and the moonless nights, and the gorgeous bloom of the east, from the
aromatic breath of the leopard, and the perfume of the fallen
pomegranate, and the sacred oil that floats in the lamps, and the caress
of the girl-bather's feet, and the myrrh-dropping unguents that glide
from the maiden's bare limbs in the moonlight,--the grass holds and
feeds on them all. But not till the grass has been torn from the roots,
and been crushed, and been bruised and destroyed, can the full odours
exhale of all it has tasted and treasured.

Even thus the imagination of man may be great, but it can never be at
its greatest until one serpent, with merciless fangs, has bitten it
through and through, and impregnated it with passion and with
poison,--that one deathless serpent which is memory.

* * *

And, indeed, to those who are alive to the nameless, universal, Eternal
Soul which breathes in all the grasses of the fields, and beams in the
eyes of all creatures of earth and air, and throbs in the living light
of palpitating stars, and thrills through the young sap of forest trees,
and stirs in the strange loves of wind-borne plants, and hums in every
song of the bee, and burns in every quiver of the flame, and peoples
with sentient myriads every drop of dew that gathers on a hare-bell,
every bead of water that ripples in a brook--to them the mortal life of
man can seem but little, save at once the fiercest and the feeblest
thing that does exist; at once the most cruel and the most impotent;
tyrants of direst destruction, and bondsmen of lowest captivity.

* * *

The earth has always most char