ASPIRO.—A FABLE.

Then my life was like a dream in which we guess at God-thoughts. I was so completely absorbed in my love that I marked the lapse of time only by the delicate varyings of my mistress's beauty, or the deepening spell of her royal rule. I was delirious with the delight of her presence, which comprised to me all types of excellence. Within her eyes the sapphire gates of heaven unclosed to me; in the splendor of lustred hair was life-warmth.

—And had I forgot?—the red lips I crushed like rose-leaves on my own—the tender eyes that plead 'remember me'—the faded rosemary which we culled together—the vows with which I said that love like ours was never false, nor parting fatal. Had I forgot? Could this Aspiro of my worship quite dispel my youth-dream—had her infatuating presence quite eclipsed my memory of Christine?—

Alas! I had not meant to be inconstant, but while I strove sullenly for success in uncongenial occupation, she came to me—Aspiro—came like the truth and light, and taught me to myself.

For a long time I doubted and resisted; though she tempted me, making real the dreams of my shy, worshipful childhood, teaching me the meanings of treasured stories which I had listened to from flower-sprite and river-god, leading and wooing me with lovelier lures than even Nature's; for tropical bird-song and falling water was harsh to her voice, and dew-dripped lilies dim to her brow. But I shut my dazzled eyes at first from these, and strove to see only the face whereon, with tender kisses, I had sealed my future—having narrow aims; till the vision faded despairingly, and even closed lids would not recall it, and my weak resistance seemed but to strengthen the sway that bore me willingly away.

Over and over I told the rosary of Aspiro's charms. Hour by hour I wearied not of her perfections. With burning vows and rapturous words I pledged my life to her.

Once when the wind was sweeping her gay garments, like hope-banners, against my limbs, and tangling her long, loose hair about me—once when I was blind with the jewel-dazzle from her breast, thrilled by the passion-pressure of her hand, she said, in saddest, sweetest tones:

'I am erratic, Paulo, and exacting—will you tire of me!'

O Immortality! Did not that seem sacrilege!

Like curlew's wings flapped the white sails of the ship on the blue waters. Aspiro's eyes absorbed my mind and memory. The past was voiceless—the future clarion-toned. So we loosed our hold of the real past, and drifted toward an ideal future.

We wandered through apocalyptic mazes, startling the hush of mystery with daring footsteps. We brake the bread of the cosmic sacrament in sight of the Inaccessible.

In the metallic mirrors of Arctic lakes we watched the wind-whipped clouds. Mute we knelt in the ice-temples of Silence, and where the glaciers shatter the rainbows we renewed our promises.

Wet sat at the universal banquet, and drank deep of Beauty. Cheek pressed to cheek, arms interlaced, we sighed in the consecrated throes of its reproduction, and in the imagery of Art we lisped Creation's lessons.

From height to height and depth to depth. Lagging in low canoes along the black waters of silent swamps—life-left—seeing the far-off blue of sky and hope between the warning points of cypress spires. Across the stretch of yellow sands, seeking her riddle of the Sphinx, and asking from the Runic records of one dead faith, and the sand-buried temples of another, the aim of the True.

Or clouds or rocks or winds or waves, the mutable or the unchangeable was in turn the theme of our reproductive praise. There were transfigurations on the mountain tops, where the spirit of the universe wore shining garbs and hailed us, their Interpreters. From every wave stretched Undine arms to greet us, and tongues of flame taught us the glories of the element.

Sometimes in giddy pauses shone sad eyes—yet not reproachful on me; but if I sighed in answer to their shining, Aspiro dazzled in betwixt me and my memory, and bade me 'cease not striving,' while her white finger pointed farther onward. For our love-life was a striving, and life's best porcelain was like common clay for fashioning vessels for its use.

I gave up all to her, time, talent, ingenuity. Studying for her caprices and struggling for her pleasure. How fair she seemed, how worthy any effort! If only I might hope that I, at last, should wholly win her approbation and make our union indissoluble. Her radiant smiles, and lofty, loving words, were hard to win, but then, when won—! Who ever looked and spoke and smiled as did Aspiro?

There was neither rest nor dalliance on our way. Unrest lit meteors in the heaven of my mistress's eyes, and I lost, at length, the delusion that I should ever satisfy all her imperious exactions. Then I hoped to make but some one thought or deed quite worthy of her favor, even to the sacrifice of my life.

I strove my utmost in the Art we loved. The strife consumed the dross of daily, petty hopes and fears, which make the happiness of common lives, and left my soul a crucible receptive for refinement only; and Aspiro tempted me to new endeavors by glimpses of the court which Nature holds, wearing Dalmatian mantle and spray-bright crown, in realms forbidden mortals.

'I thought, for my sake,' she would say, sadly,'you had already done something better than you have.'

If my soul sickened then, my courage did not falter, nor did her incentive beauty lose any of its charm.

I said: 'Give me a task, Aspiro, and I will please you yet.'

Then she pointed to me what I might do, and my work began.

In this work I reproduced my mistress's beauty and my love's significance. Having learned the language of nature, I translated from her hieroglyphic pages in characters of flame. With rash hands I stripped false seemings from material beauty, and limned the naked divinity of Idea. Shorn by degrees in my strife of youth and strength and passion, I wound them in my work—toiling like paltry larvæ. And it was done—retouched and lingered over long, apotheosized by mighty effort. So I offered it to my Fate.

Never before, as at that moment, had Aspiro seemed so worthy to be won at any cost. I trembled as I laid my work before her—she so transcended Beauty. But still I hoped. I waited for her dawning smile and outstretched hand, ready to die of attained longing when these should be bestowed.

She, gleaming like ice, transfixed me coldly, and, slighting with her glance my work, asked: 'Can you do no more?'

I answered with weary hopelessness: 'No more.'

How cold her laugh was!

'And have I waited on you all these years for this?'

I echoed drearily: 'For this.'

'Well, blot it out, and try again, if you would please me,' said Aspiro.

With spent strength I cast myself at her feet.

'You see,' I said,'I have mixed these colors with my life-wine.'

'Why, then,' she asked, carelessly, 'with your insufficient strength, were you tempted to woo and follow me?'

So my life with its endeavors was a wreck. I thought of the good I had sacrificed, of the hopes that had failed. The Past and Future alike pierced my hands with crucificial nails, till, faint with the pain and the scorning, I lapsed into a long prostration, from which I came at last to the dawn-light of sad, once-forgotten eyes—to the odor of withered rosemary.

'True heart that I spurned,' I cried, 'can you forgive? I will return Aspiro scorn for scorn, and go humbly back, where it is perhaps not yet too late for happiness.'

With dreary reproaches came memory, disenthralled. I dreamed of my youth, its love, and its aim. I pictured a porch with its breeze-tossed vines, a rocking boat on a limpid lake, a narrow path through twilight-brooded woods, and each scene the shrine of a sweet face with brown, banded hair, and love-lit eyes.

And these pictures were the True. My heart cleaved the eternity of separation, beaconing my sad return to them, and I followed gladly, hope being not yet dead.

The summer porch was shady with fragrant vines—but I missed the face. I buoyed my heart, and said, 'Of course she would not have waited so long.'

I went to the woods, through the narrow paths where of old the birds twittered, and javelins of sunshine pierced—on, where we had gone together long ago, till I reached the dell where we pledged our love. Ah! I should find her here—

The sweet face where I should kindle smiles—the brown hair I could once more stroke—the lithe form that I longed to clasp—the true heart that should beat for me in a quiet home.

No. No waiting eyes—no true heart—no glad smile. But a cross and a grave and a name:

'Christine.'

Aspirants of the Age! Offspring of Aloēus I you have chosen a worship that admits not a divided heart. But your faith, like the Mystic's, shall also make your strength; and though Aspiro stoops not to your stature, yet she reigns, and she rewards. Be true. Be firm. Even if it be upon the wreck of some frail, temporal heart-hopes, you must reach higher, till, in the sheen of the approving smile, you read the world-lesson: Salvation through sacrifice. Through strife and suffering—excellence.