the rest.  For if its light, shining, as now, through the grimy horn-lantern of the body, in narrow lanes and along the miasmatic flats of the world, even so helped men, how much more must it, rising above that earthly fume, in a hidden corner no longer, but in the open heaven, a star above the city.  Sacrifice! yes, it was just such a tug as a man in the dark warmth of morning sleep feels it to leave the pillow.  The mountain-tops of morning gleam cold and bare:  but O! when, staff in hand, he is out amid the dew, the larks rising like fountains above him, the gorse bright as a golden fleece on the hill-side, and all the world a shining singing vision, what thought of the lost warmth then?  What warmth were not well lost for this keen exhilarated sense in every nerve, in limb, in eye, in brain?  What potion has sleep like this crystalline air it almost takes one’s breath to drink, of such a maddening chastity is its grot-cool sparkle?  What intoxication can she give us for this larger better rapture?  So did Narcissus, an old Son of the Morning, figure to himself the struggle, and pronounce ‘the world well lost.’

But I feel as I write how little I can give the Reader of all the ‘splendid purpose in his eyes’ as he made this resolve.  Perhaps I am the less able to do so as—­let me confess—­I also shared his dream.  One could hardly come near him without, in some measure, doing that at all times; though with me it could only be a dream, for I was not free.  I had Scriptural example to plead ‘Therefore I cannot come,’ though in any case I fear I should have held back, for I had no such creative instinct for realisation as Narcissus, and have, I fear, dreamed many a dream I had not the courage even to think of clothing in flesh and blood; like, may I say, the many who are poets for all save song—­poets in chrysalis, all those who dream of what some do, and make the audience of those great articulate ones.  But there were one or two trifling doubts to set at rest before final decision.  The Reader has greatly misconceived Narcissus if he has deemed him one of those simple souls whom any quack can gull, and the good faith of this mysterious fraternity was a difficult point to settle.  A tentative application through the address given, an appropriate nom de mystere, had introduced the ugly detail of preliminary expenses.  Divine truth has to pay its postage, its rent, its taxes, and so on; and the ‘guru’ feeds not on air—­although, of course, being a ‘guru,’ he comes as near it as the flesh will allow:  therefore, and surely, Reader, a guinea per annum is, after all, reasonable enough.  Suspect as much as one will, but how gainsay?  Also, before the applicant could be admitted to noviciate even, his horoscope must be cast, and—­well, the poor astrologer also needed bread and—­no! not butter—­five shillings for all his calculations, circles, and significations—­well, that again was only reasonable.  H’m, ye-e-s, but it was dubious; and, mad as we were, I don’t