“Enough to love,” I said. “What holds enough For that?” she laugh’d. “Enough,” I answer’d her,— “To make his presence here a boon to me; To make his wishes a behest for me; To make me feel an instinct seeking him, And, finding him, a consciousness of all.” “‘A consciousness of all,’ is vague,” she said. “I ask for reasons and you rave alone. This very vagueness, while you answer me, Proves all your love a myth, or immature.” “Ah, dear,” replied I, “there is higher love,— A love of God, a love all worshipful; And that love should you ask me to define, I might an answer vaguer still give back: The finite only can be well defined.” “The finite!” she repeated; then exclaim’d: “Oh, you wish worship! We must find you then An idol! and I know a golden one; And so do you—nay, nay, deny it not.— And father’s heart is fix’d on him; besides Your lover could fall down and worship you; So father says. Two idols you could have,— Your home a very temple; only, dear, Be not so backward. Had but I your chance— To you our suitors all present their best. You get the diamonds as if you were noon; While I, I get but coals. They never touch, Unless to burn or else to blacken me.” XXII. She spoke, then left abruptly. Strange it was, With what abhorrence I would shrink from her While speaking thus. Not selfish seem’d she all, But so insensible; and these, our tastes, These dainty despots of desire, our tastes The worst of tyrants are; nor brook offense. I wellnigh hated her. Yet minded thus, While musing on her moods that seemed so hard— Have not you noticed at the arsenal, At times, when watching those grim helmets there, All suddenly, upon their polish’d brass A wondrous brightness? then, within the disk, Your own face hideous render’d? So with me: Amid her harsher traits that there appear’d, Shone soon the brighter metal; out of it, Leer’d back to greet me my own hideousness!— For I, it seem’d, had been the selfish one. Had I regarded her, my father’s wish, That suitor’s choice?—Nay, I had thought of none, None saving Haydn. Then I ask’d again, Could this be true—the thing my sister said,— Could aught so sweet as Haydn’s love exude From moods, all mushroom’d by disease? I thought How marvellously throng’d with strange weird shapes Deep halls of fancy loom, when lighted up By fires of fever; how, with trust complete, The weak lean oft on all beside themselves, And soon I blamed my heart that it could dare To lure his poor, weak, crazed confession on; And then I flush’d, and broke in passionate sobs, To think Doretta dared to hint such things. XXIII. Three days my woes alternated, and then I went to my confessor for relief.