"How so?" asked Heliobas, with a grave side-glance of admiration at the thoughtful face and meditative earnest eyes of this poet, this once bitter and blasphemous skeptic, grown up now to a majesty of faith that not all the scorn of men or devils could ever shake again.
"I want her!"--he replied, and there was a thrill of pathetic yearning in his voice--"I long for her every moment of the day and night! It seems, too, as if everything combined to encourage this craving in me,--this fond, mad desire to draw her down from her own bright sphere of joy,--down to my arms, my heart, my life! See!"--and he stopped by a bed of white hyacinths, nodding softly in the faint breeze--"Even those flowers remind me of her! When I look up at the blue sky I think of the radiance of her eyes,--they were the heaven's own color,--when I see light clouds floating together half gray, half tinted by the sun, they seem to me to resemble the soft and noiseless garb she wore,--the birds sing, only to recall to me the lute-like sweetness of her voice,--and at night, when I behold the millions upon millions of stars that are worlds, peopled as they must be with thousands of wonderful living creatures, perhaps as spiritually composed as she, I sometimes find it hard, that out of all the exhaustless types of being that love, serve, and praise God in Heaven, this one fair Spirit,--only this one angel-maiden should not be spared to help and comfort me! Yes!--I am selfish to the heart's core, my friend!"--and his eyes darkened with a vague wistfulness and trouble,--"Moreover, I have weakly striven to excuse my selfishness to my own conscience thus:--I have thought that if SHE were vouchsafed to me for the remainder of my days, I might then indeed do lasting good, and leave lasting consolation to the world,--such work might be performed as would stir the most callous souls to life and energy and aspiration,--with HER sweet Presence near me, visibly close and constant, there is no task so difficult that I would not essay and conquer in, for her sake, her service, her greater glory! But ALONE!"--and he gave a slight, hopeless gesture--"Nay,--Christ knows I will do the utmost best I can, but the solitary ways of life are hard!"
Heliobas regarded him fixedly.
"You SEEM to be alone"--he said presently, after a pause,--"but truly you are not so. You think you are set apart to do your work in solitude,--nevertheless, she whom you love may be near you even while you speak! Still I understand what you mean,--you long to SEE her again,--to realize her tangible form and presence,--well! --this cannot be until you pass from this earth and adopt HER nature, . . unless,--unless SHE descends hither, and adopts YOURS!"