them he had found no such beauty as this. The grand sweep of the poem,
the depth of its philosophy, the sublimity of its thought, the melody
of its verse, the color, the radiant richness of its imagery,
the sonorous swell of its lines, the classic purity of its
style--Dartmouth felt as if an organ were pealing within his soul,
lifting the song on its notes to the celestial choir which had sent it
forth. Heavenly fingers were sweeping the keys, heavenly voices were
quiring the melody they had with wanton hand flung into a mortal's
brain. As Harold read on he felt that his spirit had dissolved and was
flowing through the poem, to be blended, unified with it forever.
He seemed to lose all physical sensation, not from the causes of
the previous night, but from the spiritual exaltation and absorption
induced by the beauty and grandeur of the theme. When he had finished,
he flung out his arms upon the desk, buried his head in them, and
burst into tears. The tears were the result, not so much of extreme
nervous tension, as of the wonder and awe and ecstacy with which his
own genius had filled him. In a few moments his emotion had subsided
and was succeeded by a state less purely spiritual. He stood up, and
leaning one hand on the desk, looked down at the poem, his soul filled
with an exultant sense of power. Power was what he had gloried in all
his life. His birth had given it to him socially, his money had lent
its aid, and his personal fascination had completed the chapter. But
he had wanted something more than the commonplace power which fate
or fortune grants to many. He had wanted that power which lifts a man
high above his fellow-men, condemning him to solitude, perhaps, but,
in that fiercely beating light, revealing him to all men's gaze. If
life had drifted by him, it had been because he was too much of a
philosopher to attempt the impossible, too clever to publish his
incompetence to the world.