rom, hates him for emerging. It is a fight, but he has not
lost, who fails once. The women who know him are not the same again.
The poor singer destroys his life, but leaves a song, a bit of
fastidiousness. The world remembers the song, links it with the
destroyed life, and loves both.

"But look at the mother-given prophets standing alone, militant but
tender, the real producers! The spirit that sparks fitfully in the
artist is a steady flame now. Their giving is to all, not to one. What
they take of the world is very little, but through them to the world is
given direct the Holy Spirit. Saint Paul and the Forerunner are the
highest types, and in perspective. Their way is the way of the Christ,
Who showed the world that unto the completed union of Mystic Womanhood
and militant manhood, is added Godhood.

"There are immediate examples of men maturing in prophecy," Bedient
concluded. "Men in our own lives almost--Whitman, Lincoln, Thoreau,
Emerson, Carlyle, Wordsworth. See the poise and the service which came
from their greater gifts. Contrast them with the beautiful boys who
searched so madly, so vainly, among the senses--Burns, Byron, Shelley,
Keats, Poe. What noble elder brothers they are! More _con_tent, they
have, more soul-age, more of the visioning feminine principle.... And
see how flesh destroys! In the small matter of years they lived, the
prophets more than doubled the age of the singers. Their greatest work
was done in the years which the lyric-makers did not reach.... The
great masses of the world have not yet the spark which shows itself in
the singing poetic consciousness. Such men are mere males, leaning upon
matter, soldiers and money-makers, pitifully unlit, chance children,
without fastidiousness, but all on the road."

"There will be plenty, yes, more than plenty," said Beth, "to take the
places of those, who confine their parenthood to the race."

Bedient was gone, and though his incorruptible optimism was working
more than ever in her heart, that which she had sought to learn, had
not come. Prophet or not, his smile at the door had left something
volatile within her, something like girlhood in her heart. He had not
overlooked the picture upon the mantel. Twice she had looked up, and
found him regarding it.... It was the late still time of afternoon.
Beth felt emotional. She ran over several songs on the piano, while the
dusk thickened in the studio. One was about an Indian maiden who
yearned for