We may call this tone shrill, yet it did not jar like a false note in the ear of Paludan-Müller. On the contrary, he found a certain satisfaction, a certain consolation, indeed, in keeping before his own eyes and those of others the inexorable, the inevitable fate of all that is finite. When the custom of circulating the photographs of celebrated men, with a brief autograph inscription, came into vogue, he wrote beneath a picture that represented him reading a book, the characteristic words:-- "All earthly things, 'tis written here, Go up and down by turns; So he who stands above to-day What is before him learns." Justice, however, has not been accorded to the drama "Amor and Psyche," if attention be merely called to the fact that it is the harbinger of the poet's most beautiful and profound works. As intellectual poetry it has a connected and complete symbolism which obliges the author to be more rigid than ever before in handling his materials, and it is distinguished by that peculiar tinting which is so characteristic of Paludan-Müller's mythological poems. It is not a strong tinting, now gray in gray, now light in light; yet the poem is by no means colorless. The truth is, its hue is that of the reflection of pearls, the glimmer of mother of pearl, the delicate play of prismatic shades that might have radiated from the shell in which Venus emerged from the sea. The Phantasus of Paludan-Müller paints the portrait of Psyche for Amor on just such a "pearl-white" shell; and this is almost symbolic of the way in which the poet himself has executed the form of Psyche. This class of his creations, indeed, is not of an earthly nature; earth is not their true home, and even those among them who like Psyche are of earthly descent, must bid to earth a final imperative farewell. _Psyche_ (kneeling). "Gaia, thou hallowéd mother, Who gave me birth and protection. Thou from whose lips ever tender, I heard life's earliest accents, Take thou thy daughter's farewell! Nevermore shall I behold thee, Never again shall I wander Over the loved spots of memory. * * * * * * * Yonder, in heavenly mansions, Earthly sorrows will vanish."