what I am, nor what I can be, nor what I will. Do not reject my last
entreaty. Be mine for the good of that world whose happiness you bear
upon your heart. Be mine that my conscience may be pure; that a voice
divine may sound in my ears and infuse Good into the great enterprise
I have undertaken prompted by my hatred to the nations, but which I
swear to accomplish for their benefit if you will walk beside me. What
higher mission can you ask for love? what nobler part can woman aspire
to? I came to Norway to meditate a grand design."

"And you will sacrifice its grandeur," she said, "to an innocent girl
who loves you, and who will lead you in the paths of peace."

"What matters sacrifice," he cried, "if I have you? Hear my secret. I
have gone from end to end of the North,--that great smithy from whose
anvils new races have spread over the earth, like human tides
appointed to refresh the wornout civilizations. I wished to begin my
work at some Northern point, to win the empire which force and
intellect must ever give over a primitive people; to form that people
for battle, to drive them to wars which should ravage Europe like a
conflagration, crying liberty to some, pillage to others, glory here,
pleasure there!--I, myself, remaining an image of Destiny, cruel,
implacable, advancing like the whirlwind, which sucks from the
atmosphere the particles that make the thunderbolt, and falls like a
devouring scourge upon the nations. Europe is at an epoch when she
awaits the new Messiah who shall destroy society and remake it. She
can no longer believe except in him who crushes her under foot. The
day is at hand when poets and historians will justify me, exalt me,
and borrow my ideas, mine! And all the while my triumph will be a
jest, written in blood, the jest of my vengeance! But not here,
Seraphita; what I see in the North disgusts me. Hers is a mere blind