aying
what they meant. How I have heard you growl over the three stone steps
to purgatory; for instance!

L. Yes; because Dante's meaning is worth getting at; but mine matters
nothing: at least, if ever I think it is of any consequence, I speak it
as clearly as may be. But you may make anything you like of the serpent
forests. I could have helped you to find out what they were, by giving a
little more detail, but it would have been tiresome.

SIBYL. It is much more tiresome not to find out. Tell us, please, as
Isabel says, because we feel so stupid.

L. There is no stupidity; you could not possibly do more than guess at
anything so vague. But I think, you, Sibyl, at least, might have
recollected what first dyed the mulberry?

SIBYL. So I did; but that helped little; I thought of Dante's forest of
suicides, too, but you would not simply have borrowed that?

L. No. If I had had strength to use it, I should have stolen it, to beat
into another shape; not borrowed it. But that idea of souls in trees is
as old as the world; or at least, as the world of man. And I _did_ mean
that there were souls in those dark branches; the souls of all those who
had perished in misery through the pursuit of riches; and that the river
was of their blood, gathering gradually, and flowing out of the valley.
That I meant the serpents for the souls of those who had lived
carelessly and wantonly in their riches; and who have all their sins
forgiven by the world, because they are rich: and therefore they have
seven crimson crested heads, for the seven mortal sins; of which they
are proud: and these, and the memory and report of them, are the chief
causes of temptation to others, as showing the pleasantness and
absolving power of riches; so that thus they are singing serpents. And
the worms are the souls of the common money-getters and traffickers, who
do nothing but eat and spin: and who gain habitually by the distress or
foolishness of others (as you see the butchers have been gaining out of
the panic at the cattle plague, among the poor),--so they are made to
eat the dark leaves, and spin, and perish.

SIBYL. And the souls of the great, cruel, rich people who oppress the
poor, and lend money to government to make unjust war, where are they?

L. They change into the ice, I believe, and are knit with the gold; and
make the grave dust of the valley. I believe so, at least, for no one
ever sees those souls anywhere.

(SIBYL _ceases ques