And, “Oh, farewell to life!” murmured the glorious dreamer.  “Sweet, O life! hast thou been to me.  How fathomless thy joys,—­how rapturously has my soul bounded forth upon the upward paths!  To him who forever renews his youth in the clear fount of Nature, how exquisite is the mere happiness to be!  Farewell, ye lamps of heaven, and ye million tribes, the Populace of Air.  Not a mote in the beam, not an herb on the mountain, not a pebble on the shore, not a seed far-blown into the wilderness, but contributed to the lore that sought in all the true principle of life, the Beautiful, the Joyous, the Immortal.  To others, a land, a city, a hearth, has been a home; my home has been wherever the intellect could pierce, or the spirit could breathe the air.”

He paused, and through the immeasurable space his eyes and his heart, penetrating the dismal dungeon, rested on his child.  He saw it slumbering in the arms of the pale mother, and his soul spoke to the sleeping soul.  “Forgive me, if my desire was sin; I dreamed to have reared and nurtured thee to the divinest destinies my visions could foresee.  Betimes, as the mortal part was strengthened against disease, to have purified the spiritual from every sin; to have led thee, heaven upon heaven, through the holy ecstasies which make up the existence of the orders that dwell on high; to have formed, from thy sublime affections, the pure and ever-living communication between thy mother and myself.  The dream was but a dream—­it is no more!  In sight myself of the grave, I feel, at last, that through the portals of the grave lies the true initiation into the holy and the wise.  Beyond those portals I await ye both, beloved pilgrims!”

From his numbers and his Cabala, in his cell, amidst the wrecks of Rome, Mejnour, startled, looked up, and through the spirit, felt that the spirit of his distant friend addressed him.

“Fare thee well forever upon this earth!  Thy last companion forsakes thy side.  Thine age survives the youth of all; and the Final Day shall find thee still the contemplator of our tombs.  I go with my free will into the land of darkness; but new suns and systems blaze around us from the grave.  I go where the souls of those for whom I resign the clay shall be my co-mates through eternal youth.  At last I recognise the true ordeal and the real victory.  Mejnour, cast down thy elixir; lay by thy load of years!  Wherever the soul can wander, the Eternal Soul of all things protects it still!”

CHAPTER 7.XV.

     Il ne veulent plus perdre un moment d’une nuit si precieuse. 
     Lacretelle, tom. xii.

     (They would not lose another moment of so precious a night.)