In vain! in vain! strike other chords! You can call spirits from the vasty deep; but will they come when you do call for them?—An angel-influence, tangible, visible, audible, which would make Jordan the easiest of all roads to travel by thy side. Peerless Jim! crowning triumph of Darwinian Evolution from the inert mineral, through countless hairy and uninviting types! how precious the inexplicable vital spark which, nevertheless, robs thy sculptured form of all cash Gallery-value; and how easy to read in that gentle personality a satisfying comment on the concluding lines of Faust :
The Woman-Soul leadeth us
Upward and on.
A double meaning there, by my faith! Alas! poor little Jim! go thy ways, die when thou wilt; for Maud Beaudesart comes——
"H a-a—a-a-a-a-a y!"
Rest, rest, perturbed spirit. By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, now wherefore stop'st thou me?—For Maud Beaudesart comes o'er my memory as doth the raven o'er the infected house. Get thee to a nunnery, Jim. The chalk-mark is on my door; for Mrs. B. has no less than three consecutive husbands in heaven—so potently has her woman-soul proved its capacity for leading people upward and on. Methinks I perceive a new and sinister meaning in the Shakespearean love-song:—
Come away, come away, death;
And in sad cypress let me be laid.
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair, cruel maid.
Nicely put, no doubt; but the importance of a departure depends very much on the——
"Ha-a-a-a-a-a-ay!"
No appearance, your worship. Call for Enobarbus; he will not hear thee, or, from Caesar's camp, say 'I am none of thine.'——On the value of the departed. For instance, when a man of property departs, he leaves his possessions behind—a fact noticed by many poets—and the man himself is replaced without cost. When a well-salaried official departs—such as a Royal Falconer, or a Master of the Buckhounds, or an Assistant-Sub-Inspector he perforce leaves his billet behind; and we wish him bon voyage to whichever port he may be bound. But when a philosopher departs in this untimely fashion, he leaves nothing——
"Ha-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-ay!"