“No, no! I am presumptuous. I trust you will teach me. Begin--do not hesitate--I will listen.” “To move you I must not come in the garments of methodism. That faith will never be yours.” “What faith shall it be?” “That of Catholicism. I must come armed with authority. I must carry the sword and keys of St. Peter. I must be sustained by all the pomps of that church of pomps and triumphs. My divine mission must speak through signs and symbols, through stately stole, pontifical ornaments, the tiara of religious state on the day of its most solemn ceremonial; and with these I must bring the word of power, born equally of intellect and soul, and my utterance must be in the language of divinest poesy!” “Ah! you mistake! That last will be enough. Speak to me in poesy--let me hear that--and you will subdue me, I believe, to any faith that you teach. For I can not but believe the faith that is endowed with the faculty of poetic utterance.” “In truth it is a divine utterance--perhaps the only divine utterance. Would I had it for your sake.” “Oh! you must have it. I fancy I see it in some things that you have said. You read poetry, I am sure--I am sure you love it.” “I do! I know not anything that I love half so well.” “Then you write it?” she asked eagerly. “No! the gift has been denied me.” She looked at him with eyes of regret. “How unfortunate,” she said. “Doubly so, as the deficiency seems to disappoint you.” She did not seem to heed the flattery of this remark, nor did she appear to note the expression of face with which it was accompanied. Her feelings took the ascendency. She spoke out her uncommissioned thoughts and fancies musingly, as if without the knowledge of her will. “I fancy that I could kneel down and worship the poet, and feel no shame, no humility. It is the only voice that enchants me--that leads me out from myself; that carries me where it pleases and finds for me companions in the solitude; songs in the storm; affections in the barren desert! Even here, it brings me friends and fellowships. How voiceless would be all these woods to me had it no voice speaking to, and in, my soul. Hoping nothing, and performing nothing here, it is my only consolation. It reconciles me to this wretched spot. It makes endurance tolerable. If it were not for this companionship--if I heard not this voice in my sorrows, soothing my desolation, I could freely die!--die here, beside this rock, without making a struggle to go forward, even to reach the stream that flows quietly beyond!”