, I should say its power is supreme.

The sovereign, our dinar, does it not answer exactly to this poem of the
Arabian written in the days of the Crusades! It is yellow, it is pure,
it travels vast distances, and is as valuable in India as here, it is
famous and has a reputation, the inscription on it is the mark of its
worth, it is the sinew of war, the world loves its brightness as if it
was coined from their hearts, those who have it in their purses are
bold, it helps every one who has it, it banishes all cares, and one
might say, were it not for fear of the Lord, that the sovereign was all
mighty.

All mighty for good as it seemed to Amaryllis thinking in her garret,
leaning her head on her hand, and gazing at her violets; all mighty for
good--if only she could get the real solid, golden sovereign!

But the golden coin has another side--the obverse--another Fate, for
evil, clinging to it, and the poet, changing his tone, thunders:--

Ruin on it for a deceiver and insincere,
The yellow one with two faces like a hypocrite!
It shows forth with two qualities to the eye of him that
looks on it,
The adornment of the loved one, the colour of the lover.
Affection for it, think they who judge truly,
Tempts men to commit that which shall anger their Maker.
But for it no thief's right hand were cut off;
Nor would tyranny be displayed by the impious;
Nor would the niggardly shrink from the night-farer;
Nor would the delayed claimant mourn the delay of him that
withholds;
Nor would men call to God from the envious who casts at them.
Moreover the worst quality that it possesses
Is that it helps thee not in straits,
Save by fleeing from thee like a runaway slave.
Well done he who casts it away from a hilltop,
And who, when it whispers to him with the whispering of a
lover,
Says to it in the words of the truth-speaking, the veracious,
"I have no mind for intimacy with thee,--begone!"

"The worst quality that it possesses" remains to this day, and could
Amaryllis have obtained the sovereign, still it would only have helped
her by passing from her, from her hand to that of the creditor's,
fleeing like a runaway slave.

But Amaryllis surrounded with the troubles of her father and mother, saw
only the