of Euripides, and you shall feel him indeed
divine--"this grand benevolence." . . . We can hear the voice of
Balaustion deepen, quiver, and grow grave with gladdened love, as
Herakles is fashioned for us by these two men's noble minds.

+ + + + +

When she had told the "perfect piece" to her girl-friends, a sudden
inspiration came to her:

"I think I see how . . .
You, I, or anyone might mould a new
Admetos, new Alkestis";

and saying this, a flood of gratitude for the great gift of poetry comes
full tide across her soul:

". . . Ah, that brave
Bounty of poets, the one royal race
That ever was, or will be, in this world!
They give no gift that bounds itself and ends
I' the giving and the taking: theirs so breeds
I' the heart and soul o' the taker, so transmutes
The man who only was a man before,
That he grows god-like in his turn, can give--
He also; share the poet's privilege,
Bring forth new good, new beauty from the old.
. . . So with me:
For I have drunk this poem, quenched my thirst,
Satisfied heart and soul--yet more remains!
Could we too make a poem? Try at least,
Inside the head, what shape the rose-mists take!"

And, trying thus, Balaustion, Feminist, portrays the perfect marriage.

Admetos, in Balaustion's and Browning's _Alkestis_, will not let his
wife be sacrificed for him:

"Never, by that true word Apollon spoke!
All the unwise wish is unwished, oh wife!"

and he speaks, as in a vision, of the purpose of Zeus in himself.

"This purpose--that, throughout my earthly life,
Mine should be mingled and made up with thine--
And we two prove one force and play one part
And do one thing. Since death divides the pair,
'Tis well that I depart and thou remain
Who wast to me as spirit is to flesh:
Let the flesh perish, be perceived no more,
So thou, the spirit that informed the flesh,
Bend yet awhile, a very flame above
The rift I drop into the darkness by--
And bid remember, flesh and spirit once
Worked in the world, one body, for man's sake.
Never be that abominable show
Of passive death without a quickening life--
Admetos only, no Alkestis now!"

It is so that the man speaks to and of the woman, in Balaustion's and
Browning's _Alkestis_.

And the woman,