It amounts to a sort of refrain in the melodious rhythm of that fragmentary prose-poem of De Quincey’s, “The Daughter of Lebanon,”—the admonition of the prophet to the lovely woman in the Damascus market-place: “Ask what thou wilt—great or small—and through me thou shalt receive it from God. But, my child, ask not amiss. For God is able out of thy own evil asking to weave snares for thy footing. And oftentimes to the lambs whom He loves, He gives by seeming to refuse; gives in some better sense, or” (and here the prophet’s voice swelled into the power of anthems) “in some far happier world.” And when the sun is declining to the west on the thirtieth day, the prophet iterates the strain of old: “Lady of Lebanon, the day is already come, and the hour is coming, in which my covenant must be fulfilled with thee. Wilt thou, therefore, being now wiser in thy thoughts, suffer God, thy new Father, to give by seeming to refuse; to give in some better sense, or in some far happier world?” But the daughter of Lebanon sorrowed at these words; she yearned after her native hills, and the sweet twin-born sister with whom from infant days hand-in-hand she had wandered amongst the everlasting cedars. The delirium of fever, and approaching death, are next described; and again the evangelist sits down by her bedside, and rebukes the clouds that trouble her vision, and bids them stand no more between that dying Magdalen and the forests of Lebanon. Anon, we read how the blue sky parted to the right and to the left, laying bare the infinite revelations that can be made visible only to dying eyes; and how, as the child of Lebanon gazed upon the mighty visions, she saw bending forward from the heavenly host, as if in gratulation to herself, the one countenance for which she hungered and thirsted. “The twin-sister, that should have waited for her in Lebanon, had died of grief, and was waiting for her in Paradise. Immediately in rapture she soared upwards from her couch; immediately in weakness she fell back; and being caught by the evangelist, she flung her arms around his neck; whilst he breathed into her ear his final whisper, ‘Wilt thou now suffer that God should give by seeming to refuse?’—‘Oh yes—yes—yes,’ was the fervent answer from the daughter of Lebanon.” Hitherto she had known not what to ask for as she ought. Hitherto her asking had been amiss: she had asked for she knew not what. But now her vision was purged. Now she had the second-sight that could pierce through and beyond the night-side of nature, and gaze on the land that is very far off. Hitherto she had, at the best, seen through a glass darkly; but now, it might be said, face to face. So that she knew what to ask for, now.