their faces was written the dread of calm, that fearful stillness which
feels not, sympathizes not with the dooms over which it broods.

War, tempest, pestilence, the rise of empires, and their fall, they
ordain, they, compass, unexultant and uncompassionate. The fell and
thrilling crimes that stalk abroad when the world sleeps--the parricide
with his stealthy step, and horrent brow, and lifted knife; the unwifed
mother that glides out and looks behind, and behind, and shudders, and
casts her babe upon the river, and hears the wail, and pities not--the
splash, and does not tremble!

These the starred kings behold--to these they lead the unconscious step;
but the guilt blanches not their lustre, neither doth remorse wither
their unwrinkled youth.

Each star wore a kingly diadem; round the loins of each was a graven
belt, graven with many and mighty signs; and the foot of each was on a
burning ball, and the right arm dropped over the knee as they bent down
from their thrones; they moved not a limb or feature, save the finger
of the right hand, which ever and anon moved slowly, pointing, and
regulated the fates of men as the hand of the dial speaks the career of
time.

One only of the three thousand and ten wore not the same aspect as his
crowned brethren; a star, smaller than the rest, and less luminous. The
countenance of this star was not impressed with the awful calmness of
the others; but there were sullenness and discontent upon his mighty
brow.

And this star said to himself--"Behold, I am created less glorious
than my fellows, and the archangel apportions not to me the same lordly
destinies. Not for me are the dooms of kings and bards, the rulers of
empires, or, yet nobler, the swayers and harmonists of souls. Sluggish
are the spirits and base the lot of the men I am ordained to lead
through a dull life to a fameless grave. And wherefore?--Is it mine own
fault, or is it the fault which is not mine, that I was woven of beams
less glorious than my brethren? Lo! when the archangel comes, I will
bow not my crowned head to his decrees. I will speak, as the ancestral
Lucifer before me: _he_ rebelled because of his glory, _I_ because of
my obscurity; _he_ from the ambition of pride, and _I_ from its
discontent."

And while the star was thus communing with himself, the upward heavens
were parted as by a long river of light, and adown that stream swiftly,
and without sound, sped the archangel visitor of the stars; hi