THE KILLING OF MARMION 



the father of a boy. This is the answer to that 

 vain prayer of experience Oh, that I could 

 live my life over again. You are living it over 

 again. Watch it. While you have been throw 

 ing life away like a heap of faggots, it has been 

 budding. It is given to every father of a boy to 

 be his own incubus or his own good angel. If 

 you will only listen to your primitive self, you 

 will hear a Memnonian voice as of Nature her 

 self. It is saying, It is better to have one 

 woman who believes you are the greatest man in 

 the world, and who presents you with a boy who 

 agrees with her, than it is to be the greatest man 

 in the world. Under all the flashing tumult 

 and flying spume of a masterful life are the un 

 sullied depths of a creative love with a Kyrie 

 Eleison in it. These sub-depths never get stirred 

 by the life you have been leading. You must sit 

 a while on the shore of this sea you have crossed, 

 and see the shallop of yourself sporting on the 

 beached margent, and feel how helpless you are 

 to load your experience into it without swamping 

 it. By and by, as its sails get stronger, it will 

 venture out to try it all over again. No charts 

 or compasses of yours will still the voices of 

 the sirens, and no silken sails that you can fur 

 nish will turn him from the magical horizon. 

 The isles are floating on a furlong still before. 

 Sit still a while and wait on the sands. Some 

 day he will sail wearily back, looking for the love 

 that he never found elsewhere, to find when he&quot; 

 returns, mayhap, only the runes and the desolate 



35 



