k, and drunken. Or again--_twice_ within these
last void and idle six months--I have suddenly run, bawling out, from
this temple of luxury, tearing off my gaudy rags, to hide in a hut by
the shore, smitten for one intense moment with realisation of the past
of this earth, and moaning: 'alone, alone ... all alone, alone, alone
... alone, alone....' For events precisely resembling eruptions take
place in my brain; and one spangled midnight--ah, how spangled!--I may
kneel on the roof with streaming, uplifted face, with outspread arms,
and awe-struck heart, adoring the Eternal: the next, I may strut like a
cock, wanton as sin, lusting to burn a city, to wallow in filth, and,
like the Babylonian maniac, calling myself the equal of Heaven.

* * * * *

But it was not to write of this--of all this--!

Of the furnishing of the palace I have written nothing.... But why I
hesitate to admit to myself what I _know_, is not clear. If They speak
to me, I may surely write of Them: for I do not fear Them, but am Their
peer.

Of the island I have written nothing: its size, climate, form,
vegetation.... There are two winds: a north and a south wind; the north
is cool, and the south is warm; and the south blows during the winter
months, so that sometimes on Christmas-day it is quite hot; and the
north, which is cool, blows from May to September, so that the summer is
hardly ever oppressive, and the climate was made for a king. The
mangal-stove in the south hall I have never once lit.

The length, I should say, is 19 miles; the breadth 10, or thereabouts;
and the highest mountains should reach a height of some 2,000 ft.,
though I have not been all over it. It is very densely wooded in most
parts, and I have seen large growths of wheat and barley, obviously
degenerate now, with currants, figs, valonia, tobacco, vines in rank
abundance, and two marble quarries. From the palace, which lies on a
sunny plateau of beautifully-sloping swards, dotted with the circular
shadows thrown by fifteen huge cedars, and seven planes, I can see on
all sides an edge of forest, with the gleam of a lake to the north, and
in the hollow to the east the rivulet with its little bridge, and a few
clumps and beds of flowers. I can also spy right through----

* * * * *

It shall be written now:

I have this day heard within me the contention of the Voices.

* * * * *