And her dark eyelids tremble. Then with moan,
And fearful struggle, swift he fled away,
That she might nothing of his strife perceive.
And then, reminded of his gift of flight,
He started from the earth, and beat aloft,
Each sweep of his great wings a torture-stroke
Upon his fainting heart. And thus away,
With languid flight he moved, and Eileen, raised
In new-born joy from off her couch of pain,
Saw a strange bird into the distance fade."
And so Cedric went back to the seamed rock, and there he heard a voice calling, "I seek Caradrion!" And as before he answered,
"Come not, except to sorrow thou be born!" And again, in the cave—
"The hours of night sped by. And sounds came forth as when a woman fights In savage pain, a life from hers to free.
But Eileen dwelt within the happy vale, Thinking no thought of him that went away."
§ 4. THIS had come so very easily to Thyrsis that he could not believe that it was good. "Just a little story," he said to Corydon, when he read it to her, and he was surprised to see how it affected her—how the tears welled into her eyes, and she clung to him, sobbing. It meant more to her than any other thing
that he had written; it was the very voice of their tenderness and their grief.
Then Thyrsis took it to the one editor he knew who was a lover of poetry, and was surprised again, at this man's delight. But he smiled sadly as he realized that the editor did not use poetry—they did not praise so recklessly when it was a question of something to be purchased!
''The poem is too long for any magazine," was the verdict, "and it's not long enough for a book. And besides, poetry doesn't sell." But none the less Thyrsis, who would never take a defeat, began to offer it about; and so "Caradrion" was added to the list of stamp-consuming manuscripts, and set out to see the world at the expense of its creator's stomach.
So there was one more wasted vision, one more futile effort—and one more grapple with despair, in the hours when he and his wife sat wrapped in a blanket in the tenement-room. Corydon was growing more nervous and unhappy every day, it seemed to him. There were, apparently, endless humiliations to be experienced by a woman "whose husband did not support her". Some zealous relative had suggested to her the idea that the "hall-boys" might think she was not really married; and so now she was impelled to speculate upon the psychology of these Ethiopian functionaries, and look for slights and disapproval from them!
Thyrsis, from much work and little sleep, was haggard and wild of aspect; the cry of the world, "Take a position!" rang in his ears day and night. The springs of book-reviews had dried up entirely, and by sheer starvation he was forced to a stage lower yet. A former college friend was editing a work of "contemporary biography", and offered Thyrsis some hack-
writing. Ic meant the carrying home of huge bundles of correspondence from the world's most brightly-shining lights, and the making up of biographical sketches from their eulogies of themselves. With every light there came a portrait, showing what manner of light it was. As for Thyrsis, he did his writing with the feeling that he would like to explore with a poniard the interiors of each one of these people.
For nearly three months now an eminent editor had been trying to summon up the courage to accept "The Hearer of Truth". He had written several letters to tell the author how good a work it was; and now that it was to be definitely rejected, he soothed his conscience by inviting the author to lunch. The function came off at one of the most august and stately of the city's clubs, a marble building near Fifth Avenue, where Thyrsis, with a new clean collar, and his worn shoes newly shined, passed under the suspicious eyes of the liveried menials, and was ushered before the eminent editor. About the vast room were portraits of bygone dignitaries; and there were great leather-upholstered arm-chairs in which one might see the dignitaries of the present—some of them with little tables at their sides, and decanters and soda and cracked ice. They went into the dining-room, where everyone spoke and ate in whispers, and the waiters flitted about like black and white ghosts; and while Thyrsis consumed a cupful of cold bouillon, and a squab en casserole, and a plate of what might be described as an honorific salad, he listened to the soft-voiced editor discussing the problem of his future career.
The editor's theme was what the public wanted. The world had existed for a long time, it seemed, and was not easily to be changed; it was necessary for an author
to take its prejudices into consideration—especially if he was young, and unknown, and—er—dependent upon his own resources. It seemed to Thyrsis, as he listened, that the great man must have arranged this luncheon as a stage-setting for his remarks—planning it on purpose to light a blaze of bitterness in the soul of the hungry poet. "Look at me," he seemed to say—"this is the way the job is done. Once I was poor and unknown like you—actually, though you might not credit it, a raw boy from the country. But I had taste and talent, and I was judicious; and so now for thirty years I have been at the head of one of the country's leading magazines. And see—by my mere word I am able to bring you here into the very citadel of power! For these men about you are the masters of the metropolis. There is a rich publisher—his name is a household word —and you saw how he touched me on the shoulder. There is an ex-mayor of the city—you saw how he nodded to me! Yonder is the head of one of the oldest and most exclusive of the city's landed families—even with him I am acquainted! And this is power! You may know it by all these signs of mahogany furniture, and leather upholstery, and waiters of reverential deportment. You may know it by the signs of respectability and awesomeness and chaste abundance. Make haste to pay homage to it, and enroll yourself in its
service!"
Thyrsis held himself in, and parted from the editor with all courtesy; but then, as he walked down Fifth Avenue, his fury burst into flame. Here, too, was power—here, too, the signs of it! Palaces of granite and marble, and towering apartment-hotels; an endless vista of carriages and automobiles, with rich women lolling in them, or descending into shops whose windows
blazed with jewels and silver and gold. Here were the masters of the metropolis, the masters of life; the dispensers of patronage—that "public" which he had to please. He would bring his vision and lay it at their feet, and they would give him or deny him opportunity! And what was it that they wanted? Was it worship and consecration and love? One could read the answer in their purse-proud glances; in the barriers of steel and bronze with which they protected the gates of their palaces; in the aspects of their flunkeys, whose casual glances were like blows in the face. One could read the answer in the pitiful features of the little errand-girl who went past, carrying some bit of their splendor to them; or of the ragged beggar, who hovered in the shelter of a side-street, fearing their displeasure. No, they were not lovers of life, and protectors; they were parasites and destroyers, devourers of the hopes of humanity! Their splendors were the distilled essence of the tears and agonies of millions of defeated people —their jewels were drops of blood from the heart of the human race!
§ 5. So, with rage and bitterness, Thyrsis was gnawing out his soul in the night-time; distilling those fierce poisons which he was to pour into the next of his works —the most terrible of them all, and the one which the world would never forgive him.
There came another episode, to bring matters to a crisis. In the far Northwest lived another branch of Thyrsis' family, the head of which had become what the papers called a "lumber-king". One of this great man's radiant daughters was to be married, and the family made the selecting of her trousseau the occasion for a flying visit to the metropolis. So there were