where the
grace of the Creator bestows the richest gifts, and where His holiest
altars are prepared? In your own heart; so long as it is pure and full
of love. In such a heart, nature is reflected as in a magic mirror, on
whose surface the Beautiful shines in three-fold beauty. There the eye
can reach far away over stream, and meadow, and hill, and take in the
whole circle of the earth; there the morning and evening-red shine,
not like roses and rubies, but like the very cheeks of the Goddess of
Beauty; there the stars circle on, not in silence, but with the mighty
voices of the pure eternal harmonies of heaven; there the child smiles
like an infant-god, and the bud unfolds to magic flowers; finally,
there thankfulness grows broader and devotion grows deeper, and we throw
ourselves into the arms of a God, who--as I imagine his glory--is a
God to whom the sublime nine great Gods pray as miserable and helpless
suppliants."

The tomtom which announced the end of the hour interrupted him.

Pentaur ceased speaking with a deep sigh, and for a minute not a scholar
moved.

At last the poet laid the papyrus roll out of his hand, wiped the sweat
from his hot brow, and walked slowly towards the gate of the court,
which led into the sacred grove of the temple. He had hardly crossed the
threshold when he felt a hand laid upon his shoulder.

He looked round. Behind him stood Ameni. "You fascinated your hearers,
my friend," said the high-priest, coldly; "it is a pity that only the
Harp was wanting."

Ameni's words fell on the agitated spirit of the poet like ice on the
breast of a man in fever. He knew this tone in his master's voice, for
thus he was accustomed to reprove bad scholars and erring priests; but
to him he had never yet so spoken.

"It certainly would seem," continued the high-priest, bitterly, "as if
in your intoxication you had forgotten what it becomes the teacher to
utter in the lecture-hall. Only a few weeks since you swore on my hands
to guard the mysteries, and this day you have offered the great secret
of the Unnameable one, the most sacred possession of the initiated, like
some cheap ware in the open market."

"Thou cuttest with knives," said Pentaur.

"May they prove sharp, and extirpate the undeveloped canker, the rank
weed from your soul," cried the high-priest. "You are young, too young;
not like the tender fruit-tree that lets itself be trained aright, and
brought to perfection, but like the green f