Then a strong wind came down from the peaks of the mountains like the breathing of a God; and it rent the clouds asunder, and scattered the fog wreaths, and blew the phantoms hither and thither like smoke; and like smoke they were extinguished and spent against the crags of the pass.  And after that the poet cared no more for them, but went on his way with a bold heart, until he had left behind and below him the clouds and mists of the ravines among the hills, and stood on the topmost expanse of dazzling snow, and beheld once more the golden gate of the Land that lies beyond the Sun.

But of his meeting with the Princess, and of the gladness and splendour of their espousals, and of all the joy that he had, is not for me to tell, for these things, which belong to the chronicles of that fairy country, no mortal hand in words of human speech is in any wise able to relate.  All that I certainly know and can speak of with plainness is this, that he obtained the fulness of his heart’s desire, and beyond all hope, or knowledge, or understanding of earth, was blessed for evermore.

And now I have finished the story of a man who saw and followed his Ideal, who loved and prized it, and clave to it above and through all lesser mundane things.  Of a man whom the senses could not allure, nor the craving for knowledge, nor the lust of power, nor the blast of spiritual vanity, shake from his perfect rectitude and service.  Of a man who, seeing the good and the beautiful way, turned not aside from it, nor yielded a step to the enemy; in whose soul the voice of the inward Divinity no rebuke, nor derision, nor neglect could quench; who chose his part and abode by it, seeking no reconciliation with the world, not weakly repining because his faith in the justice of God distanced the sympathies of common men.”  Every poet has it in him to imagine, to comprehend, and desire such a life as this; he who lives it canonises his genius, and, to the topmost manhood of the Seer, adds the Divinity of Heroism.

IV.  A Turn of Luck

“Messieurs, faites votre jeu! . . .  Le jeu est fait! . . .  Rien ne va plus! . . .  Rouge gagne et la couleur! . . .  Rouge gagne, la couleur perd! . . .  Rouge perd et la couleur! . . . "

Such were the monotonous continually recurring sentences, always spoken in the same impassive tones, to which I listened as I stood by the tables in the gaming-rooms of Monte Carlo.  Such are the sentences to which devotees of the fickle goddess, Chance, listen hour after hour as the day wears itself out from early morning to late evening in that beautiful, cruel, enchanting earthly paradise, whose shores are washed by the bluest sea in the world, whose gardens are dotted with globes of golden fruit, and plumed with feathery palms, and where, as you wander in and out among the delicious shadowy foliage, you hear, incessantly, the sound of guns, and may, now and then, catch sight of some doomed creature with delicate white breast and broken wing, dropping, helpless and bleeding, into the still dark waters below the cliff.  A wicked place!  A cruel place!  Heartless, bitter, pitiless, inhuman!  And yet, so beautiful!