heart! Was this also one of Thy temptations?--one of the myriad
illusions marshalled before Thee by Mara in that night when the earth
rocked as a chariot, and the sacred trembling passed from sun to sun,
from system to system, from universe to universe, from eternity to
eternity?"

_O the jewel in her ear!_ The vision would not go! Nay, each time it
hovered before his thought it seemed to take a warmer life, a fonder
look, a fairer form; to develop with his weakness; to gain force from
his enervation. He saw the eyes, large, limpid, soft, and black as a
deer's; the pearls in the dark hair, and the pearls in the pink mouth;
the lips curling to a kiss, a flower-kiss; and a fragrance seemed to
float to his senses, sweet, strange, soporific,--a perfume of youth, an
odor of woman. Rising to his feet, with strong resolve he pronounced
again the sacred invocation; and he recited the holy words of the
_Chapter of Impermanency_:

"Gazing upon the heavens and upon the earth ye must say, _These are not
permanent_. Gazing upon the mountains and the rivers, ye must say,
_These are not permanent_. Gazing upon the forms and upon the faces
of exterior beings, and beholding their growth and their development, ye
must say, _These are not permanent_."

And nevertheless! how sweet illusion! The illusion of the great sun; the
illusion of the shadow-casting hills; the illusion of waters, formless
and multiform; the illusion of--Nay, nay I what impious fancy! Accursed
girl! yet, yet! why should he curse her? Had she ever done aught to
merit the malediction of an ascetic? Never, never! Only her form, the
memory of her, the beautiful phantom of her, the accursed phantom of
her! What was she? An illusion creating illusions, a mockery, a dream, a