Phantastes, a Faerie Romance for Men and Women

to nourish him for yet deeper insatiableness."

Self will come to life even in the slaying of self; but there is ever something deeper and stronger than it, which will emerge at last from the unknown abysses of the soul:

"I saw thee ne'er before; I see thee never more; But love, and help, and pain, beautiful one, Have made thee mine, till all my years are done."

All mirrors are magic mirrors.

His mind had never yet been filled with an absorbing passion; but it lay like a still twilight open to any wind, whether the low breath that wafts but odours, or the storm that bows the great trees till they strain and creak.

Over me rose the summer heaven, expectant of the sun. The clouds already saw him, coming from afar; and soon every dewdrop would rejoice in his individual presence within it.

Ere long, I learned that it was not myself, but only my shadow, that I had lost. I learned that it is better, a thousand-fold, for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence. I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure

Thou dreamest: on a rock thou art, High o'er the broken wave; Thou fallest with a fearful start But not into thy grave; For, waking in the morning's light, Thou smilest at the vanished night

But, alas! it is like trying to reconstruct a forest out of broken branches and withered leaves.