with him; I only felt that if the illness of genius had at any
time affected ME, it was pretty well certain I should now suffer
no more from its delicious pangs and honey-sweet fever. I was
cured! The probing-knife of the world's cynicism had found its way
to the musically throbbing centre of divine disquietude in my
brain, and had there cut down the growth of fair imaginations for
ever. I thrust aside the bright illusions that had once been my
gladness; I forced myself to look with unflinching eyes at the
wide waste of universal Nothingness revealed to me by the rigid
positivists and iconoclasts of the century; but my heart died
within me; my whole being froze as it were into an icy apathy,--I
wrote no more; I doubt whether I shall ever write again. Of a
truth, there is nothing to write about. All has been said. The
days of the Troubadours are past,--one cannot string canticles of
love for men and women whose ruling passion is the greed of gold.
Yet I have sometimes thought life would be drearier even than it
is, were the voices of poets altogether silent; and I wish--yes! I
wish I had it in my power to brand my sign-manual on the brazen
face of this coldly callous age-brand it deep in those letters of
living lire called Fame!"

A look of baffled longing and un gratified ambition came into his
musing eyes,-his strong, shapely white hand clenched nervously, as
though it grasped some unseen yet perfectly tangible substance.
Just then the storm without, which had partially lulled during the
last few minutes, began its wrath anew: a glare of lightning
blazed against the uncurtained window, and a heavy clap of thunder
burst overhead with the sudden crash of an exploding bomb.

"You care for Fame?" asked Ileliobas abruptly, as soon as the