LITERATURE. 79 



cannot take her to my tiosom. Atah, mj- love ! 1 hy liod iniplons thy i)ity. I h' ihseiveN 

 the whole of it, because he feels more, he suffers more than any one else . . . Look down 

 the river," said he, sadly, " have I not lieen the cause of those tears? " 



" It is I, it is I," said Atah, her head bent on her heaving breast on which were falling 

 the di\ine tears. 



And War was thoughtful .... 



" Sweet Atah, beloved darling of mine, it was madness to \\ i>li that I might have forgotten 

 ill, it 1 had ni'\-('r liccn born, never seen thei' . . . Oh, l'"ate, impassable and cursed 

 tor all, but d()ubl\- dire to me because 1 am j^reater I Atah, mine ! l.ove of my life ! Tlirob 

 of my heart 1 llo^ie of my future ! l>c thou wise, let ])ati(nce and reason iigulate thine 

 existence." 



"Patience ! Reason ! My God ! Is not patience at its f)est but cowartlice, immobilit}', 

 dreariness itself? .\nd reason : is it anything else than crystallised madness? Shut out of 

 life, isolated from the universe by its shortsightedness, it knows not tin- (HviiU' emotion of 

 the heart, the sublime light of thine eyes, it percei\es only the sccuching of the skin. Patience 

 and reason ! Have they ever haxl anything to do with thy valour, and that enthusiasm which 

 has carried everything in thy train? Have they gi\en thee tlu- Pm])ire of the Pui\-erse, 

 have they given thee the whole of my heart? Seek their ad\ici', my (iod, and tliey will 

 whisper in thine ear all the Ijlasphemies ever heartl, ever dreamed of, and ask tlier to descend 

 from thy glory into the selfishness of the beast. They will condemn as stujud the indis- 

 criminate outpouring of thine ocean of bounties on all that is. They will hiss into thy 

 heart the venom of their narrow dicta and treat thy generous symj^athies, thy vigilance, thy 

 devotion, thyactivity, thy giving away all for nothing, as a {practice only couduci\-e to ex- 

 haustion, senility, and decay. Patience and Reason ! Yes, if I had not received the strong 

 embrace of my God and his sweet penetrating kiss — if I had not known the ecstacy of his 

 contemplation — yes, if I had not tasted his odorant breath mingled witii mine if 1 

 had not felt in a thrill sublime that I was inhal)ite(l for ever ! " 



" Hast thou not spoken of hope, of future? Are they not another name for Pove which 

 is all in all, the sublime force without which everything would cease to be, nothing could 

 ever have been." 



"Oh! Speak again those sweet words and let me forget the otiiers ; they are tiie 

 only words which should piass thy lips and fall m the mlinitude as set'ds from which, under 

 thy gaze, would germinate new worlds. Speak to me, War, my beloved, gi\e me words that 

 I may treasure and repeat in m\- solitude, where 1 can do nothing l)ut wait for thy ap|)arition, 

 dream of thy love . . . and hope for evei" 



Though greater in de})th and more formidable and jjotent, the love of tiu' Gods is of the 

 same essence as the love of mortals, and it has ne\i'r been heai'd that it has been wanting; in 

 echo, has failed at last to conciner. 



War had been listening and found himself under the charm ol his beiovcil little .\tah. 

 He stood erect, trembling with emotion, in a subUme |)ride which 1k' had never felt before. 

 His heart was beating slowly, now and then with heavy thuds which sloj)ped his breath, his 

 face w^as pale, and the colour in his lips went and came with the ])ulsatious of his heart, 

 whilst his blue eyes had long lost their diamond brilliancy and seemed absorbed m the con- 

 templation of the past, the present, and the future, floating aimlessly in the limitless region 

 of a godly consciousness, he was lost in the rapture of love, the only desire of mortals, the 

 sublime dream of Gods, the infinite aspiration of all. 



" Blessed be everything, forever ! The joy of joys, the thrillin.!^ of supreme hapi)iuess 

 in mine now ! The Past is sweet ! If I have suffered in its womb it was that I might be 

 prepared for my advent into that supreme Present, from which I shall be elevated by felicity 

 into the dazzling region of the Future. Yes, Atah .... Yes. Love is all. Hope 

 and Love. Love and Hope. To-morrow, in an instant full perhaps of burning desires and 

 blinding, bleeding despair, reckoned by the unknowing as millions of years, in a minute of 



