THE DREAMER'S MISSION. 237 



all things beautiful. But he knew that his days were num- 

 bered, — he knew that death had set his mark upon him, — and 

 he felt too keenly the anguish of looking his last upon the 

 material loveliness which had ministered to his soul's ideal. 



Horace Lee was one of those dreamy, tender, fantastic 

 beings, who are sometimes, though rarely, seen amid the 

 thronged thoroughfares of life, and whose unsettled purposes 

 and undefined position, show that they can never be other than 

 " strangers and pilgrims in the land." They are like creatures 

 of another sphere, — habitants of some gentler planet who have 

 wandered from their home, and are vainly seeking to rise above 

 the dense atmosphere of this nether world, — beings who need 

 but wings to realize our idea of angelic ministers, and yet, 

 wanting some outward evidence of power, seem, to our grosser 

 sense, inferior even to the mass of mankind. 



From infancy Horace had been one of the gentlest and ten- 

 derest of creatures. The heart of an invalid mother had 

 yearned over the child who inherited so much of her own nature, 

 and the sweet communion of maternal and filial affection had 

 confirmed the softness of a character which needed rather to 

 be nerved against the ills of life. The boy's delicately moulded 

 features and slender form were exponents, to the eye, of his 

 real character. Essentially feminine in so many traits, it 

 seemed almost an error in nature to have given such a soul to 

 the keeping of man. His loving and trusting nature, the sweet 

 vagueness of a tenderness which went out upon all things beau- 

 tiful, without passion yet with deep earnestness of feeling, the 



