es,
and left my soul a crucible receptive for refinement only; and Aspiro
tempted me to new endeavors by glimpses of the court which Nature holds,
wearing Dalmatian mantle and spray-bright crown, in realms forbidden
mortals.

'I thought, for my sake,' she would say, sadly,'you had already done
something better than you have.'

If my soul sickened then, my courage did not falter, nor did her
incentive beauty lose any of its charm.

I said: 'Give me a task, Aspiro, and I will please you yet.'

Then she pointed to me what I might do, and my work began.

In this work I reproduced my mistress's beauty and my love's
significance. Having learned the language of nature, I translated from
her hieroglyphic pages in characters of flame. With rash hands I
stripped false seemings from material beauty, and limned the naked
divinity of Idea. Shorn by degrees in my strife of youth and strength
and passion, I wound them in my work--toiling like paltry larvae. And it
was done--retouched and lingered over long, apotheosized by mighty
effort. So I offered it to my Fate.

Never before, as at that moment, had Aspiro seemed so worthy to be won
at any cost. I trembled as I laid my work before her--she so transcended
Beauty. But still I hoped. I waited for her dawning smile and
outstretched hand, ready to die of attained longing when these should be
bestowed.

She, gleaming like ice, transfixed me coldly, and, slighting with her
glance my work, asked: 'Can you do no more?'

I answered with weary hopelessness: 'No more.'

How cold her laugh was!

'And have I waited on you all these years for this?'

I echoed drearily: 'For this.'

'Well, blot it out, and try again, if you would please me,' said Aspiro.

With spent strength I cast myself at her feet.

'You see,' I said,'I have mixed these colors with my life-wine.'

'Why, then,' she asked, carelessly, 'with your insufficient strength,
were you tempted to woo and follow me?'

So my life with its endeavors was a wreck. I thought of the good I had
sacrificed, of the hopes that had failed. The Past and Future alike
pierced my hands with crucificial nails, till, faint with the pain and
the scorning, I lapsed into a long prostration, from which I came at
last to the dawn-light of sad, once-forgotten eyes--to the odor of
withered rosemary.

'True heart that I spurned,' I cried, 'can you forgive? I will return
Aspiro scorn for scorn, and go humbly back, where it is perhaps not yet