“Such, my dear fellow,” he went on complacently.. “is the history of the success of ‘Nourhalma.’  It certainly began with the belief that you were no longer able to benefit by the eulogy received.—­ but all the same that eulogy has been uttered and cannot be UNuttered.  It has led all the lovers of the highest literature to get the book for themselves, and to prove your actual worth, independently of press opinions,—­and the result is an immense and steadily widening verdict in your favor.  Speaking personally, I have never read anything that gave me quite so much artistic pleasure as this poem of yours except ’Hyperion,’—­only ‘Hyperion’ is distinctly classical, while ‘Nourhalma’ takes us back into some hitherto unexplored world of antique paganism, which, though essentially pagan, is wonderfully full of pure and lofty sentiment.  When did the idea first strike you?”

“A long time ago!” returned Alwyn with a slight, serious smile—­“I assure you it is by no means original!”

Villiers gave him a quick, surprised glance.

“No?  Well, it seems to me singularly original!” he said..  “In fact, one of your critics says you are too original!  Mind you, Alwyn, that is a very serious fault in this imitative age!”

Alwyn laughed a little.  His thoughts were very busy.  Again in imagination he beheld the burning “Temple of Nagaya” in his Dream of Al-Kyris,—­again he saw himself carrying the corpse of his former Self through fire and flame,—­and again he heard the last words of the dying Zabastes—­“I was the Poet’s adverse Critic, and who but I should write his Eulogy?  Save me, if only for the sake of Sah-luma’s future honor!—­thou knowest not how warmly, how generously, how nobly, I can praise the dead!”

True! ...  How easy to praise the poor, deaf, stirless clay when sense and spirit have fled from it forever!  No fear to spoil a corpse by flattery,—­the heavily sealed-up eyes can never more unclose to lighten with glad hope or fond ambition; the quiet heart cannot leap with gratitude or joy at that “word spoken in due season” which aids its noblest aspirations to become realized!  The dead poet?—­Press the cold clods of earth over him, and then rant above his grave,—­tell him how great he was, what infinite possibilities were displayed in his work, what excellence, what merit, what subtlety of thought, what grace of style!  Rant and rave!—­print reams of acclaiming verbosity, pronounce orations, raise up statues, mark the house he lived and starved in, with a laudatory medallion, and print his once-rejected stanzas in every sort of type and fashion, from the cheap to the costly,—­teach the multitude how worthy he was to be loved, and honored,—­and never fear that he will move from his rigid and chill repose to be happy for once in his life, and to learn with amazement that the world he toiled so patiently for is actually learning to be grateful for his existence!  Once dead and buried he can be safely made glorious,—­he cannot affront us either with his superior intelligence, or make us envy the splendors of his fame!