horizon, neither had Hector begun to fret against the feeling that he
must not speak to her; in such a silence and in such a presence he felt
he could live happy for ages; he moved in a lovely dream of still
content.

And it was natural also that he should begin to burgeon spiritually and
mentally, to grow and flourish beyond any experience in the past. Within
a few such days of hidden happiness, the power of verse, and of thoughts
worthy of verse, came upon him with as sure an inspiration of the
Almighty as can ever descend upon a man, accompanied by a deeper sense
of the being and the presence of God, and a stronger desire to do the
will of the Father, which is surely the best thing God himself can
kindle in the heart of any man. For what good is there in creation but
the possibility of being yet further created? And what else is growth
but more of the will of God?

Something fresh began to stir in his mind; even as in the spring, away
in far depths of beginning, the sap gives its first upward throb in the
tree, and the first bud, as yet invisible, begins to jerk itself forward
to break from the cerements of ante-natal quiescence, and become a
growing leaf, so a something in Hector that was his very life and soul
began to yield to unseen creative impulse, and throb with a dim, divine
consciousness. The second evening after thus recognizing its presence he
hurried up the stair from the office to his own room, and there, sitting
down, began to write--not a sonnet to his charmer, neither any dream
about her, not even some sweet song of the waking spring which he felt
moving within him, but the first speech of a dramatic poem. It was a
bold beginning, but all beginners are daring, if not presumptuous.
Hector's aim was to embody an ideal of check, of rousing, of revival, of
new energy and fresh start. All that evening he wrote with running pen,