himself no fatigue by land or by sea." [230] From this time, Harold's
private life ceased. Love and its charms were no more. The glow of
romance had vanished. He was not one man; he was the state, the
representative, the incarnation of Saxon England: his sway and the
Saxon freedom, to live or fall together!

The soul really grand is only tested in its errors. As we know the
true might of the intellect by the rich resources and patient strength
with which it redeems a failure, so do we prove the elevation of the
soul by its courageous return into light, its instinctive rebound into
higher air, after some error that has darkened its vision and soiled
its plumes. A spirit less noble and pure than Harold's, once entering
on the dismal world of enchanted superstition, had habituated itself
to that nether atmosphere; once misled from hardy truth and healthful
reason, it had plunged deeper and deeper into the maze. But, unlike
his contemporary, Macbeth, the Man escaped from the lures of the
Fiend. Not as Hecate in hell, but as Dian in heaven, did he confront
the pale Goddess of Night. Before that hour in which he had deserted
the human judgment for the ghostly delusion; before that day in which
the brave heart, in its sudden desertion, had humbled his pride--the
man, in his nature, was more strong than the god. Now, purified by
the flame that had scorched, and more nerved from the fall that had
stunned,--that great soul rose sublime through the wrecks of the Past,
serene through the clouds of the Future, concentering in its solitude
the destinies of Mankind, and strong with instinctive Eternity amidst
all the terrors of Time.

King Harold came from York, whither he had gone to cement the new
power of Morcar, in Northumbria, and personally to confirm the
allegiance of the Anglo-Danes:--King Harold came from York, and in the