The fault, sigh’d conscience, had been all my own: How safely might one sail the sea of life If all his reckonings were but true to heaven! Ah, siren-like, a rivalling earthly love May lure to realms whose mountain heights are clouds, Clouds warmly hued above a cold gray shoal, Whose only outlines are the breakers’ caps, Whose only stir, the fury of the storm. And I, who now had learn’d the truth, what now?— Should I turn back to aims I knew were safe?— I swore to do it; yet I thought—and thrill’d— Could I but hold her soul, but own herself, Though all things else were lost, this gain were sweet!— Were sweet, though all were lost? Why need this be? All might be saved. Did I believe in God?— That he could change a life through human means? Might not her life be chang’d then?—What were I But faithless wholly, did I try this not? XXXI. So, soon, to draw her thoughts out, baiting mine, Some slur I dropt, suggested by a church: It touch’d a theatre. “Extremes,” I said, “Have met.” “Extremes have met,” she said, “before! I take your meaning. Elbert has disclosed— Not what I am, but what I seem to be To those who will not view me as I am. You join their lists?—I hoped for better things.” “But was it right to keep me ignorant?” “I hoped it right,” she said, “to keep you wise. What Elbert thought, I knew. With you, had hopes, That she who might not seem so wholly wrong Might better represent a class unknown,—” “Without design, might represent amiss,” I answer’d. “As for you, however class’d, I fear no class could claim you, all in all. For all rules have exceptions.” “Take but rules For this time,” said she. “Did you ever find That ever, when the seers look forth through heaven, They view there pews and pulpits?—Nay, not so: Yet oft they note a stage and galleries, All throng’d with white-robed hosts attendant there. So these, you see, at times may hint of good.” “They may,” I said, “but do they, as a rule?” “Ah, as a rule,” she said, “they hint of life—”