of itself." Further doctrines, though not yet fully accepted,
are being passionately taught: such, for example, as that Man--male
Man--is the least protective of animals.

"Over my head his arm he flung
Against the world . . ."

I think we can see the princess, as she spoke those words, aglow and
tremulous like the throbbing fingers in the Northern skies. Well, the
"Northern Lights" recur, in our latitudes, at unexpected moments, at
long intervals; but they do recur.

One thing vexes, yet solaces, me in this tale of Count Gismond. The
Countess, telling Adela the story, has reached the crucial moment of
Gauthier's insult when, choked by tears as we saw, she stops speaking.
While still she struggles with her sob, she sees, at the gate, her
husband with his two boys, and at once is able to go on. She finishes
the tale, prays a perfunctory prayer for Gauthier; then speaks of her
sons, in both of whom, adoring wife that she is, she must declare a
likeness to the father--

"Our elder boy has got the clear
Great brow; tho' when his brother's black
Full eye shows scorn, it . . ."

With that "it" she breaks off; for Gismond has come up to talk with her
and Adela. The first words we hear her speak to that loved husband
are--fibbing words! The broken line is finished thus--

". . . Gismond here?
And have you brought my tercel back?
I just was telling Adela
How many birds it struck since May."

We, who have temporarily lost so many things, have at least gained this
one--that we should not think it necessary to tell that fib. We should
say nothing of what we had been "telling Adela." And some of us,
perhaps, would reject the false rhyme as well as the false words.

II

"PIPPA PASSES"

I. DAWN: PIPPA

The whole of Pippa is emotion. She "passes" alone through the drama,
except for one moment--only indirectly shown us--in which she speaks
with some girls by the way. She does nothing, is nothing, but exquisite
emotion uttering itself in song--quick lyrical outbursts from her joyous
child's heart. The happiness-in-herself which this poor silk-winder
possesses is something deeper than the gaiety of which I earlier spoke.
Gay she can be, and is, but the spell that all unwittingly she
exercises, derives from the profounder depth of which the Eastern poet
thought when he said that "We ourselves are Heaven and Hell." . . .
Innocent but not ignora