_He_ is not the only man who has failed. All men strive--who succeeds? His enfranchised spirit seems to range the universe--everywhere the _done_ is petty, the undone vast; everywhere men dream beyond their powers: "I hoped she would love me; here we ride!" No one gains all. Hand and brain are never equal; hearts, when they can greatly conceive, fail in the greatest courage; nothing we do is just what we dreamed it might be. We are hedged in everywhere by the fleshly screen. But _they_ two ride, and he sees her bosom lift and fall. . . . To the rest, then, their crowns! To the statesman, ten lines, perhaps, which contain the fruit of all his life; to a soldier, a flag stuck on a heap of bones--and as guerdon for each, a name scratched on the Abbey stones. "My riding is better, by their leave!" Even our artists! The poet says the thing, but we feel it. Not one of us can express it like him; but has he _had_ it? When he dies, will he have been a whit nearer his own sublimities than the lesser spirits who have never turned a line? "Sing, riding's a joy! For me, I ride." (Note the fine irony here. The poet shall sing the joy of riding; this man _rides_.) The great sculptor, too, with his twenty years' slavery to Art: "And that's your Venus, whence we turn To yonder girl that fords the burn!" But the sculptor, with his insight, acquiesces, so this man need not pity him. The musician fares even worse. After _his_ life's labours, they say (even his friends say) that the opera is great in intention, but fashions change so quickly in music--he is out-of-date. He gave his youth? Well-- "I gave my youth; but we ride, in fine." Supposing we could know perfect bliss in this world, what should we have for which to strive? We must lead some life beyond, we must have a bliss to die for! If _he_ had this glory-garland round his soul, what other joy could he ever so dimly descry? "Earth being so good, would heaven seem best? Now, heaven and she are beyond this ride." * * * * * Thus he has mused, riding beside her, to the horses' rhythmic stretching pace. It shall be best as she decrees. She rejects him: he will not whine; what she does shall somehow have its good for him--_she_ shall not be wrong! He has the thought of her in his soul, and the memory of her--and there will be, as well, the memory of this ride. That moment he has, whole and perfect: "Who knows but the world may end to-night!" Yes; they ride on--the sights, the sounds, the thoughts, encompass them; they are together. His soul, all hers, has yet been half-withdrawn from her, so deeply has he mused on what she is to him: it is the great paradox--almost one forgets that she is there, so intimate the union, and so silent. . . . But is she _not_ there? and, being there, does she not now seem to give him something strange and wonderful to take from her? She _is_ there--