you inspired with the pious ambition of becoming our brother?"
"At the hotel table: it was the young clerks from the wine-houses. I mentioned that I wished to be a Free Mason, and the lodge of Épernay—"
"Silence! The words you use, lodge and Free Mason, are most improper in this temple, which is that of the Pure Illumination, and nothing less. Will you remember, Meurtrier?"
"MacMeurtrier," muttered the novice again. The last proofs were now tried upon him, called the "five senses." For that of hearing he was made to listen to a jewsharp, which he calmly proclaimed to be the bagpipe; for that of touch, he was made to feel by turns a live fish, a hot iron and a little stuffed hedgehog. The last he took for a pack of toothpicks, and announced gravely, "It sticks me." The laughs broke out from all sides, even from behind the bottle-shelves.
Alas! on this occasion the laugh was not altogether on my side of that fatal honeycomb!
They had made him swallow, in a glass, some fearful mixture or other, and he had imperturbably declared that it was in his opinion the wine of Moët: after this evidence of taste the proof of sight was to follow, and the semicircle of purple faces was quite blackening with bottled laughter, when Grandstone touched me on the shoulder. My hour for departure was come, and I had not a minute to spare.
Apparently, the last test of the red nose resulted in a triumph: as we were effecting our covert and hasty retreat we heard all the voices exclaim in concert, "It is the Pure Illumination!"
Gay as we were on entering the great wine-cellar, we were perfectly Olympian when we came out. The crypts of these vast establishments, where a soft inspiration perpetually floats upward from the wine in store, often receive a visitor as a Diogenes and dismiss him as an Anacreon.
Our consumption of wine at dinner had been, like Mr. Poe's conversation with his soul, "serious and sober." In the cellar no drop had passed our mouths. I was alert as a lark when I entered: I came out in a species of voluptuous dream.
All the band conducted me to the railway-station, and I was very much touched with the attention. It was who should carry my botany-box, who should set my cap straight, who should give me the most precise and statistical information about the train which returned to Paris, with a stop at Noisy; the while, Ophelia-like, I chanted snatches of old songs, and mingled together in a tender reverie my recollections of Mary Ashburton, my coming Book and my theories of Progressive Geography.
"Take this shawl: the night will be chilly before you get to the city."
"Don't let them carry you beyond Noisy."
"Come back to Épernay every May-day: never forget the feast of Saint Athanasius."
"Be sure you get into the right train: here is the car. Come, man, bundle up! they are closing the barrier."
I was perfectly melted by so much sympathy. "Adieu," I said, "my dear champanions—"
I turned into an excellent car, first class, and fell asleep directly.
Next day I awoke—at Strasburg! The convivials of the evening before, making for the Falls of Schaffhausen on the Rhine, had traveled beside me in the adjoining car.
My friends, uncertain how their practical joke would be received, clustered around me.
"Ah, boys," I said, "I have too many griefs imprisoned in this aching bosom to be much put out by the ordinary 'Horrid Hoax.' But you have compromised my reputation. I promised to meet Hohenfels at Marly: children, bankruptcy stares me in the face."
Grandstone had the grace to be a little embarrassed: "You wished to dine with me at the Feast of Saint Athanasius, but you mistook the day. Your engineer is the true culprit, for he voluntarily deceived you. The fact is, my dear Flemming, we have concocted a little conspiracy. You are a good fellow, a joyful spirit in fact, when you are not in your lubies about the Past and the Future. We wanted you, we conspired; and, Catiline having stolen you at Noisy, Cethigus tucked you into a car with the intention of making use of you at Schaffhausen."
"Never! I have the strongest vows that ever man uttered not to revisit the Rhine. It is an affair of early youth, a solemn promise, a consecration. You have got me at Strasburg, but you will not carry me to Schaffhausen."
He was so contrite that I had to console him. Letting him know that no great harm was done, I saw him depart with his friends for Bâle. For my part, I remained with the engineer, whose professional duties, such as they were, kept him for a short time in the capital of Alsace. In his turn, however, the latter took leave of me: we were to meet each other shortly.
It was seven in the morning. This time, to be sure of my enemy the railroad, I procured a printed Guide. But the Guide was a sorry counselor for my impatience. The first train, an express, had left: the next, an accommodation, would start at a quarter to one. I had five hours and three-quarters to spare.
One of the greatest pleasures in life, according to my poor opinion, is to have a recreation forced on one. Some cherub, perhaps, cleared the cobwebs away from my brain that morning; but, however it might be, I was glad of everything. I was glad the "champanions" were departed, glad I had a stolen morning in Strasburg, glad that Hohenfels and my domestics would be uneasy for me at Marly.
In such a mood I applied myself to extract the profit out of my detention in the city.
TWO MOODS
All yesterday you were so near to me,
It seemed as if I hardly moved or spoke
But your heart moved with mine. I woke
To a new life that found you everywhere,
As if your love was as some wide-girt sea,
Or as the sunlit air;
And so encompassed me,
Whether I thought or not, it could not but be there.
To-day your words approve me, and your heart
Is mine as ever, yet that heavenly sense
Of oneness that made every hour intense
With Love's full perfectness, is gone from thence;
And, though our hands are clasped, our souls are two,
And in my thoughts I say, "This is myself—this you!"
THE RIDE OF PRINCE GERAINT
And Prince Geraint, now thinking that he heard The noble hart at bay, now the far horn, A little vext at losing of the hunt, A little at the vile occasion, rode By ups and downs through many a glassy glade And valley, with fixt eye following the three.
Through forest paths his charger strode,
His heron plume behind him flowed,
Blood-red the west with sunset glowed,
Far down the river golden flowed,
And in the woods the winds were still:
No helm had he, nor lance in rest;
His knightly beard flowed down his breast;
In silken costume gayly drest,
Out from the glory of the west
He
