tify that choice in the ensuing action; as is
strikingly manifested by the authentic histories of Brunhalt, and of
Guenevere, and of swart Cleopatra, and of many others that were born to
the barbaric queenhoods of a now extinct and dusty time.

For royal persons are (I take it) the immediate and the responsible
stewards of Heaven; and since the nature of each man is like a troubled
stream, now muddied and now clear, their prayer must ever be, _Defenda
me, Dios, de me_! Yes, of exalted people, and even of their near
associates, life, because it aims more high than the aforementioned
Aristotle, demands upon occasion a more great catharsis which would
purge any audience of unmanliness, through pity and through terror,
because, by a quaint paradox, the players have been purged of all
humanity. For in that aweful moment would Destiny have thrust her
sceptre into the hands of a human being and Chance would have exalted a
human being into usurpal of her chair. These two--with what immortal
chucklings one may facilely imagine--would then have left the weakling
thus enthroned, free to direct the pregnant outcome, free to choose,
and free to steer the conjuration either in the fashion of Friar Bacon
or of his man, but with no intermediate course unbarred. _Now prove
thyself!_ saith Destiny; and Chance appends: _Now prove thyself to be
at bottom a god or else a beast, and now eternally abide that choice.
And now_ (O crowning irony!) _we may not tell thee clearly by which
choice thou mayst prove either_.

It is of ten such moments that I treat within this little book.

You alone, I think, of all persons living have learned, as you have
settled by so many instances, to rise above mortality in such a
testing, and unfailingly to merit by your conduct the plaudits and the
adoration of our otherwise dissentient world. You have sat often in
this same high chair of Chance; and in so doing have both graced and
hallowed it. Yet I forbear to speak of this, simply because I dare not
seem to couple your well-known perfection with any imperfect encomium.

_Therefore to you, madame--most excellent and noble lady,_
_to whom I love to owe both loyalty and love--_
_I dedicate this little book._

I

The Story of the Sestina

"_Armatz de fust e de fer e d'acier,
Mos ostal seran bosc, fregz, e semdier,
E mas cansos sestinas e descortz,
E mantenrai los frevols contra 'ls fortz._"

THE FIRST NOVEL.--ALI