divine and imperishable substance; and this enabled me to make my
little book a fanciful reverie over the transmutation of life into
art, and a cry of measureless desire for a world made wholly of
essences.

I was sitting dreaming of what I had written, in my house in one of
the old parts of Dublin; a house my ancestors had made almost famous
through their part in the politics of the city and their friendships
with the famous men of their generations; and was feeling an unwonted
happiness at having at last accomplished a long-cherished design, and
made my rooms an expression of this favourite doctrine. The
portraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and
tapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the
doors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with beauty
and peace; and now when I looked at my Crevelli and pondered on the
rose in the hand of the Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and
precise that it seemed more like a thought than a flower, or at the
grey dawn and rapturous faces of my Francesca, I knew all a
Christian's ecstasy without his slavery to rule and custom; when I
pondered over the antique bronze gods and goddesses, which I had
mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a pagan's delight in various
beauty and without his terror at sleepless destiny and his labour
with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to my bookshelf, where
every book was bound in leather, stamped with intricate ornament, and
of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare in the orange of the glory
of the world, Dante in the dull red of his anger, Milton in the blue
grey of his formal calm; and I could experience what I would of human
passions without their bitterness and without satiety. I had gathered
about me all gods because I believed in none, and experienced every
pleasure because I gave myself to none, but held myself apart,