I would but ask you to fulfil yourself:
But if you be that Ida whom I knew,
I ask you nothing: only, if a dream,
Sweet dream, be perfect. I shall die to-night.
Stoop down and seem to kiss me ere I die.”
The transforming power of love has done its work. Ida, who sought far less for truth than power in knowledge, is defeated in her purpose, but rises in this apparent defeat to the supreme height of her womanhood. Frankly she confesses her failure and the cause thereof:
“She had failed in sweet humility.”
Still she will not relinquish her high hopes of a nobler future for woman; nor is it necessary that she should do so. “Rather,” says the Prince,
“Henceforth thou hast a helper, me, that know
The woman’s cause is man’s: they rise or sink