composition—­he knew that nothing more artistic in conception or more finished in treatment had appeared since the St. Agnes Eve of Keats—­and as he thought of this, he yielded to a growing sense of self-complacent satisfaction which gradually destroyed all the deeply devout humility he had at first felt concerning the high and mysterious origin of his inspiration.  The old inherent pride of his nature reasserted itself—­he reviewed all the circumstances of his “trance” in the most practical manner—­and calling to mind how the poet Coleridge had improvised the delicious fragment of Kubla Khan in a dream, he began to see nothing so very remarkable in his own unconscious production of a complete poem while under mesmeric or magnetic influences.

“After all,” he mused, “the matter is simple enough when one reasons it out.  I have been unable to write anything worth writing for a long time, and I told Heliobas as much.  He, knowing my apathetic condition of brain, employed his force accordingly, though he denies having done so, ... and this poem is evidently the result of my long pent-up thoughts that struggled for utterance yet could not before find vent in words.  The only mysterious part of the affair is this ‘Field of Ardath,’ ... how its name haunts me! ... and how her face shines before the eyes of my memory!  That she should be a phantom of my own creation seems impossible—­for when have I, even in my wildest freaks of fancy, ever imagined a creature half so fair!”

His gaze rested dreamily on the opposite snow-clad peaks, above which large fleecy clouds, themselves like moving mountains, were slowly passing, their edges glowing with purple and gold as they neared the sinking sun.  Presently rousing himself, he took up a pen and first of all addressing an envelope to

“The Honble.  Francis Villiers,
“Constitutional Club,
“London”

he rapidly wrote off the following letter: 

“Monastery of Lars,
“Pass of Dariel, Caucasus.”

“My dear Villiers:—­Start not at the above address!  I am not yet vowed to perpetual seclusion, silence or celibacy!  That I of all men in the world should be in a Monastery will seem to you, who know my prejudices, in the last degree absurd—­nevertheless here I am,—­though here I do not remain, as it is my fixed intention to-morrow at daybreak to depart straightway from hence en route for the supposed site and ruins of Babylon.  Yes,—­Babylon! why not?  Perished greatness has always been a more interesting subject of contemplation to me than existing littleness—­and I dare say I shall wander among the tumuli of the ancient fallen city with more satisfaction than in the hot, humanity-packed streets of London, Paris, or Vienna—­all destined to become tumuli in their turn.  Moreover.  I am on the track of an adventure,—­on the search for a new sensation, having tried nearly all