out of themselves and feeding their hearts upon things spiritual, they learn the deep and mystic religion of love, that is the last lesson life has to teach; it is given to no man to know what is the source of this mysterious being of ours, but men who come near to it find it so glorious that they die for it in joy; and the least glimpse of it gives a man quite a new feeling about a human heart.  So at last it happens that the lovers read a fearful wonder in each other’s eyes, and give each other royal greeting, no longer for what they are, but for that which they would like to be.  They come to worship together as they could never have worshiped apart; and always that which they worship and that in which they dwell, is what all existence is seeking with so much pain, the sacred presence of wonder that some call Truth, and some Beauty,—­but all Love.  When you ask me how unselfishness is to be made yours in life, that is the answer which I give you.”

Mr. Howard’s voice had dropped very low; as he stopped Helen was trembling within herself.  She was drinking still more from the bottomless cup of her humiliation and remorse, for she was still haunted by the specter of what she had done.  The man went on after an interval of silence.

“I think there is no one,” he said, “whom these things touch more than the man who would live the life of art that I have talked of before; for the artist seeks experience above all things, seeks it not only for himself but for his race.  And it must come from his own heart; no one can drive him to his task.  All artists tell that the great source of their power is love; and the wisest of them makes of his love an art-work, as he makes an art-work of his life.  He counts his power of loving most sacred of all his powers, and guards it from harm as he guards his life itself; he gives all his soul to the dreaming of that dream, and lays all his prayer before it; and when he meets with the maiden who will honor such effort, he forgets everything else in his life, and gives her all his heart, and studies to ‘worship her by years of noble deeds.’  For a woman who loves love, the heart of such a man is a lifetime’s treasure; for his passion is of the soul, and does not die; and all that he has done has been really but a training of himself for that great consecration.  If he be a true artist, all his days have been spent in learning to wrestle with himself, to rouse himself and master his own heart; until at last his very being has become a prayer, and his soul like a great storm of wind that sweeps everything away in its arms.  Perhaps that hunger has possessed him so that he never even wakens in the dead of night without finding it with him in all its strength; it rouses him in the morning with a song, and when midnight comes and he is weary, it is a benediction and a hand upon his brow.  All the time, because he has a man’s heart and knows of his life’s great glory, his longing turns to a dream of love, to a vision of the flying perfect