"Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd, Let Darkness keep her raven gloss; Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss, To dance with Death to beat the ground!"--_Tennyson_. "Soul, rule thyself. On passion, deed, desire, Lay thou the laws of thy deliberate will. Stand at thy chosen post. Faith's sentinel: Though Hell's lost legions ring thee round with fire, Learn to endure. Dark vigil hours shall tire Thy wakeful eyes; regrets thy bosom thrill; Slow years thy loveless flower of youth shall kill; Yea, thou shalt yearn for lute and wanton lyre. Yet is thy guerdon great; thine the reward Of those elect, who, scorning Circe's lure, Grown early wise, make living light their lord. Clothed with celestial steel, these walk secure, Masters, not slaves. Over their heads the pure Heavens bow, and guardian seraphs wave God's sword."--_V. A. Symonds_. CHAPTER XIV. HOPE'S HARVEST, AND THE FAR-OFF INTEREST OF TEARS. The soul is monarch of three kingdoms. Man lives at once in the present, the past and the future. Memory presides over yesterday; to-day is ruled by reason; to-morrow is under the sway of hope. The ancient seer who stood by the historic vine reflecting how the rain of yesterday had disappeared to give its sweet liquors to the roots only to reappear to-morrow in purple clusters, gave us a beautiful image of himself. Each human life is like unto a vine--its trunk manifest in the present; its roots deeply buried in the past; its branches throwing themselves forward, ripening fruit for days to come. Life is a solid column of days all compacted together. To-day's usefulness is in the number of wise, happy and helpful yesterdays, whose accumulated treasures crowd forward the soul's present activities. But for his yesterdays stored up in memory man would be impotent for any heroic thought or deed. He would remain a perpetual infant. As the child journeys away from the cradle memory gathers up and carries forward faces, words, books, arts, sciences, literatures, and these recollections are embalmed and transmitted as soul-capital, legacies unspeakably precious.