so enduring to be mated with a lamb; I should find more congenial responsibility in the charge of a young lioness or leopardess. I like few things sweet, but what are likewise pungent; few things bright, but what are likewise hot. I like the summer day, whose sun makes fruit blush and corn blanch. Beauty is never so beautiful as when, if I tease it, it wreathes back on me with spirit. Fascination is never so imperial as when, roused and half ireful, she threatens transformation to fierceness. I fear I should tire of the mute, monotonous innocence of the lamb; I should erelong feel as burdensome the nestling dove which never stirred in my bosom; but my patience would exult in stilling the flutterings and training the energies of the restless merlin. In managing the wild instincts of the scarce manageable “bête fauve,” my powers would revel.

‘Oh, my pupil! Oh, Peri! too mutinous for heaven —too innocent for hell! never shall I do more than see and worship, and wish for thee. Alas, knowing I could make thee happy, will it be my doom to see thee possessed by those who have not that power?

‘However kindly the hand—if it is feeble, it cannot bend Shirley; and she must be bent; it cannot curb her, and she must be curbed.

‘Beware! Sir Philip Nunnely! I never see you walking or sitting at her side, and observe her lips compressed, or her brow knit, in resolute endurance of some trait of your character which she neither admires nor likes; in determined toleration of some weakness she believes atoned for by a virtue, but which annoys her, despite that belief; I never mark the grave glow of her face, the unsmiling sparkle of her eye, the slight recoil of her whole frame when you draw a little too near, and gaze a little too expressively, and whisper a little too warmly; I never witness these things, but I think of the fable of Semele reversed.

‘It is not the daughter of Cadmus I see, nor do I realize her fatal longing to look on Jove in the majesty of his godhead. It is a priest of Juno that stands before me, watching late and lone at a shrine in an Argive temple. For years of solitary ministry he has lived on dreams; there is divine madness upon him; he loves the idol he serves, and prays day and night that his frenzy may be fed, and that the Ox-eyed may smile on her votary. She has heard; she will be propitious. All Argos slumbers. The doors of the temple are shut; the priest waits at the altar.

‘A shock of heaven and earth is felt—not by the slumbering city, only by that lonely watcher, brave and unshaken in his fanaticism. In the midst of silence, with no preluding sound, he is wrapt in sudden light. Through the roof—through the rent, wide-yawning, vast, white-blazing blue of heaven above, pours a wondrous descent—dread as the down-rushing of stars. He has what he asked: withdraw—forbear to look—I am blinded. I hear in that fane an unspeakable sound —would that I could not hear it! I see an insufferable glory burning terribly between the pillars. Gods be merciful and quench it!

‘A pious Argive enters to make an early offering in the cool dawn of morning. There was thunder in the night; the bolt fell here. The shrine is shivered; the marble pavement round split and blackened. Saturnia’s statue rises chaste, grand, untouched; at her feet piled ashes lie pale. No priest remains: he who watched will be seen no more.

‘There is the carriage! Let me lock up the desk and pocket the keys; she will be seeking them tomorrow; she will have to come to me. I hear her—“Mr. Moore, have you seen my keys?”

‘So she will say, in her clear voice, speaking with reluctance, looking ashamed, conscious that this is the twentieth time of asking. I will tantalize her, keep her with me, expecting, doubting; and when I do restore them, it shall not be without a lecture. Here is the bag, too, and the purse; the glove—pen—seal. She shall wring them all out of me slowly and separately; only by confession, penitence, entreaty. I never can touch her hand, or a ringlet of her head, or a ribbon of her dress, but I will make privileges for myself; every feature of her face, her bright eyes, her lips, shall go through each change they know for my pleasure; display each exquisite variety of glance and curve, to delight—thrill—perhaps more hopelessly to enchain me. If I must be her slave, I will not lose my freedom for nothing.’


  By PanEris using Melati.

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