vainly did he expend his strength; vainly did he exhaust his knowledge:
success smiled not upon him; and Evil visited his home, and Poverty sat
in his dwelling, and Misery shivered at his hearth.

Sometimes, when the hour of trial came, it was found that the colors had
become strangely transmuted in the firing, or had faded into ashen
pallor, or had darkened into the fuliginous hue of forest-mould. And Pu,
beholding these misfortunes, made wail to the Spirit of the Furnace,
praying: "O thou Spirit of Fire, how shall I render the likeness of
lustrous flesh, the warm glow of living color, unless thou aid me?"

And the Spirit of the Furnace mysteriously answered him with murmuring
of fire: "_Canst thou learn the art of that Infinite Enameller who hath
made beautiful the Arch of Heaven,--whose brush is Light; whose paints
are the Colors of the Evening?_"

Sometimes, again, even when the tints had not changed, after the pricked
and labored surface had seemed about to quicken in the heat, to assume
the vibratility of living skin,--even at the last hour all the labor of
the workers proved to have been wasted; for the fickle substance
rebelled against their efforts, producing only crinklings grotesque as
those upon the rind of a withered fruit, or granulations like those
upon the skin of a dead bird from which the feathers have been rudely
plucked. And Pu wept, and cried out unto the Spirit of the Furnace: "O
thou Spirit of Flame, how shall I be able to imitate the thrill of flesh
touched by a Thought, unless thou wilt vouchsafe to lend me thine aid?"

And the Spirit of the Furnace mysteriously answered him with muttering
of fire: "_Canst thou give ghost unto a stone? Canst thou thrill with a
Thought the entrails of the granite hills?_"