So, near the sunset of a summer’s day, While walking by the lake within the park, “I mean,” I breathed out cautiously, “to write A tale of love; and I have plann’d the tale To open here. In after time, perchance, Those minds to whom it proves of interest May love to linger here, recalling it. Look now—this lake. To gain the full effect Of palace, park, and yonder heaven unveil’d, One, gazing downward in the water’s depth Should note them wash’d of gross reality, And—as in art—reflected. With this view This tale of mine shall open. First of all, Here, in the sunshine near us—at our feet— Ay, in the water; ay, friend, here I mean— Just underneath us,—mark you, mark you, there, The hero, and, beside him, his ideal!” XXXVI. And when she saw us two there, “What?” she cried; And then stood speechless; whereat I sped on, Detailing all my plans and all my hopes: How she, with soul so true and aim so high, Might meet in them the mission meant for her,— How all the wrongs of earth might be redeem’d Through sacrificial deeds of such as we. Still stood she silent. Then I spoke again: “But think not, Edith, for my plans alone I plead with you. I plead, too, for myself; And tell my plans that you may know myself; Not holding that I stand above you, friend. Nay, nay; I oft feel worthy scarce to touch Your fingers’ tips, or stand erect and taint The level of the air you breathe in; nay, I would not judge your life; would only crave, When we have so much else in sympathy, That holy state where two souls, else at one, Would both be God’s.—Ah, could you thus be mine?” XXXVII. Her silence then was broken. “Well might I Be proud to be thus yours. Who could not find All meet for manhood, in your manliness? But no, for you forget our different aims. You never told me of these plans before. And, Norman, now—no, no; for, through your church, That fann’d some whim of his, left smouldering, Some spark of doubt to ardent heresy, My father suffer’d, lost his honor’d name, His living, all; nor struggled, scrimpt, and starved To leave his daughter ignorant of the cause. And I?—no, no; it courses through my blood; And you would hate my tastes, which cannot be Like yours religious; no, for I was made To be the minister of only art.”