Thus, although a man of the world, in a deeper sense he was untouched by it.  He had been the sentimental spectator of a drama wherein some shadow of himself seemed to act.  The mimic scenes had sometimes moved him to laughter or to tears, but he had never quite lost the suspicion of an unreality under all.  The best end had been—­in a large sense—­beauty.  Beauty of love, of goodness, of strength, of wisdom,—­beauty of every kind and degree, but nothing better!  Beauty was the end rather than the trait of all desirable things.  To have power was beautiful, and beautiful was the death that opened the way to freer and wider power.  Most beautiful was Almightiness; yet, lapsing thence, it was beautiful to begin the round again in fresh, new forms.

This kind of spider-webs cannot outlast the suns and snows.  Personal passion disgusts one with brain-spun systems of the universe, and may even lead to a mistrust of mathematics!  One feels the overwhelming power of other than intellectual interests; and discovers in himself a hitherto unsuspected universe, profound as the mystery of God, where the cockle-shell of mental attainments is lost like an asteroid in the abyss of space.

What is the mind?—­A little window, through which to gaze out upon the vast heart-world:  a window whose crooked and clouded pane we may diligently clean and enlarge day by day; but, too often, the deep view beyond is mistaken for a picture painted on the glass and limited by its sash!  Let the window by all means expand till the darksome house be transformed to a crystal palace! but shall homage be paid the crystal?  Of what value were its transparency, had God not built the heavens and the earth?—­

Though Helwyse had failed to touch the core of life, and to recognize the awful truth of its mysteries, he had not been conscious of failure.  On the contrary he had become disposed to the belief that he was a being apart from the mass of men and above them:  one who could see round and through human plans and passions; could even be separate from himself, and yield to folly with one hand, while the other jotted down the moral of the spectacle.  He was calm in the conviction that he could measure and calculate the universe, and draw its plan in his commonplace book.  God was his elder brother,—­himself in some distant but attainable condition.  He matched finity against the Infinite, and thereby cast away man’s dearest hope,—­that of eternal progress towards the image of Divine perfection.

Once, however, the bow had smitten his heart-strings with a new result of sound, awakening fresh ideas of harmony.  When Thor was swept to death by that Baltic wave, Balder leapt after him, hopeless to save, but without demur!  The sea hurled him back alone.  For many a month thereafter, strange lights and shadows flashed or gloomed across his sky, and sounds from unknown abysses disquieted him.  But all was not quite enough; perhaps he was hewn from too stanch materials lightly to change.  Yet the sudden shock of his loss left its mark:  the props of self-confidence were a little unsettled; and the events whose course we have traced were therefore able to shake them down.