enchantment of despair. The personages of these visions were no longer
avengers, casting upon him the burning beams of the diamond eyes. They
were hopeful, pitiful; the flatterers and fawners were at their old work
again, and Pleasure, with her siren face, smiled blandishments on him.
Then he would justify the favours of the heaven he made for himself. He
would be a logician, for once, in that kind of dialectics called the
"wish-born."

"What was I afraid of?" he said to himself. "There is no turpitude, no
shame in a fair bet. I was worsted in an honourable contest. What crazy
power mocked me into the belief that all this that has befallen me was
connected with the flaying of a bird? Don't we break the necks of
innocent, yea, gentle fowls, not depredators like gulls, every day for
our dinners? And don't ladies, as delicate as the unknown censor who
dared to chastise me with her eyes, eat of the same, with a relish
delightful to the tongues that pronounce the fine words of pity and
philanthropy? But, even admitting there was cruelty in the act, where is
the link that binds it with the consequences which have brought me
here? The bet upon the maternity was not an effect of the flaying of the
bird. If it followed the prior bet, it would have followed another, in
which I was gainer, equally the same. The mad energy which weaves in my
head these day-dreams, and pursues me with these diamond eyes of wrath,
is a lying power, and I shall master it by the strength of my reason,
which at least is God's gift. Come, my Maria, as my good angel, and
enable me to free my mind from illusions. I will sit and look into your
eyes, as I have done so often. Yes, I will satisfy myself that they
shine still with the lustre of love, hope, and happiness; and oh, let
these, and these only, enter into my dreams."

And thus he satisfied himself, as all do, whose hope weaves the