But now, in his hidden valley, she never left him, though she was always veiled. He could not call up her blue eyes' magic, nor her slow smile, nor the touch of her thin fingers. She had no bodily semblance; she was a principle. In his exalted mood, being tiptoe for Mystery, he identified her with the Spirit of all Life. For life to him was a straining at the leash, a reaching for the unattainable, a preparation to soar. He saw all things flowing towards heaven, which to him was Harmony, Rest, what he called Appeasement. And all this straining and yearning in infinite variety was figured to him in Sanchia, as he discerned, but could not perceive, her presence. He made her out in elemental images, into the contours of the hills read her bountiful shape, into the onslaught of the wind her dauntless ardour. In fire leaped her pride, in the mantling snow her chastity was proclaimed. The rain was her largess, her treasure poured to enrich mankind. All flowers were sacred to her--frail beauty salient from the earth. He never looked on one but he blessed her name. On a later day he read a poem to his guest--which he called the Song of Mab. By this name, it seems, he also figured Sanchia, whose synonyms, threatened to be as many as those of Artemis or the Virgin Mary. From poring for signs of her in the face of earth he was come to see little else. If the west wind was her breath and the hills were her breasts, it needed a mystic to see them so; and he was become a mystic. A glorified and non-natural Sanchia pervaded the poem, which, for the form, was a barbaric, rough-hewn chant, stuffed with words and great phrases which had the effect rather of making music in the hearer than of containing it in themselves. It was poetry by hints, perpetually moving, initiating, lyrical phrases, then breaking off and leaving you with a melody in your ears which your brain could not render. Either the poet was inchoate or the subtlest musician of our day. He said of himself that he was a drain-pipe for the spirit--a dark saying to Glyde, who was himself, we have heard, something of a poet, of the Byronic tradition. The youth was extremely interested, though seldom moved by this chaotic piece. He was for ever on the point to drink, and had the cup snatched away. Senhouse tormented you with possibilities of bliss--where sight merges in sound and both lift together into a triumphant sweep of motion--whirled you, as it were, to the gates of dawn, showed you the amber glories of preparation, thrilled you with the throb of suspense; then, behold! coursing vapours and gathering clouds blot out the miracle--and you end in the clash of thunderstorms and dissonances. Something of this the listener had to urge. Senhouse admitted it, but he said, “You know that the splendour is enacting behind. You guess the opening of the rose. One stalks this earth agog for miracles. It is full of hints--you catch a moment--for flashed instants you are God. Then the