THE LOFTIEST LOVE 109 



gleaned from the most ancient seasons. But 

 when day returned she flung me to the lions of 

 the sun. Should they have mangled me to 

 death the mistress of my worship would not 

 have cared. She was too strong to feel com- 

 passion, too lofty to be moved by grief or 

 touched by any regret. My beloved was not 

 mine, tho' I was wholly hers, and the lilies at 

 her breast were petalled with consuming flame. 

 " Who is she that looketh forth as the morn- 

 ing, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible 

 as an army with banners ? ' It was the desert. 

 Spinoza's aphorism : — " Those who love 

 God truly must not expect that God will love 

 them in return," roots deep in human experi- 

 ence. The loftiest love is that which gets not 

 nor expects requital. I used to believe that 

 this desert I love hated me. But I thought so 

 no longer. It was not hate nor any other 

 emotion that she felt; she was filled with the 

 divine attribute of infinite indifference. 



I am subjectively certain that some ancestor 

 of mine with prognathous jaw, flat forehead 

 and enormous thews, paddled over the sea that 

 once filled these plains and roamed over the 

 far-separated hill-tracks. I often saw him, — 

 usually where the stark mountain range, — 



