‘Yes! a thousand times yes!’ cried his soul; for he was awake now, and he had come to see the dream as it was, and to shudder at himself as he had well-nigh been, just as one shudders at the thought of a precipice barely escaped.  In that moment, too, the idea of her love in all its divineness burst upon him.  Here was a heart capable of a great tragic love like the loves of old he read of and whimpered for in sonnets, and what had he offered in exchange?  A poor, philosophical compromise, compounded of pessimism and desire, in which a man should have all to gain and nothing to lose, for

  ’The light, light love he has wings to fly
     At suspicion of a bond.’

‘I would I did love her,’ his heart was crying as he went away.  ’Could I love her?’ was his next thought.  ’Do I love her?’—­but that is a question that always needs longer than one day to answer.

Already he was as much in love with her as most men when they take unto themselves wives.  She was desirable—­he had pleasure in her presence.  He had that half of love which commonly passes for all—­the passion; but he lacked the additional incentives which nerve the common man to face that fear which seems well-nigh as universal as the fear of death, I mean the fear of marriage—­life’s two fears:  that is, he had no desire to increase his worldly possessions by annexing a dowry, or ambition of settling down and procuring a wife as part of his establishment.  After all, how full of bachelors the world would be if it were not for these motives:  for the one other motive to a true marriage, the other half of love, however one names it, is it not a four-leaved clover indeed?  Narcissus was happily poor enough to be above those motives, even had Hesper been anything but poor too; and if he was to marry her, it would be because he was capable of loving her with that perfect love which, of course, has alone right to the sacred name, that which cannot take all and give nought, but which rather holds as watchword that to love is better than to be loved.

Who shall hope to express the mystery?  Yet, is not thus much true, that, if it must be allowed to the cynic that love rises in self, it yet has its zenith and setting in another—­in woman as in man?  Two meet, and passion, the joy of the selfish part of each, is born; shall love follow depends on whether they have a particular grace of nature, love being the thanksgiving of the unselfish part for the boon granted to the other.  The common nature snatches the joy and forgets the giver, but the finer never forgets, and deems life but a poor service for a gift so rare; and, though passion be long since passed, love keeps holy an eternal memory.

  ’Love took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords
    with might;
  Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, pass’d in music
    out of sight.’