The King of Alsander

land where bloo

leam the gol

lows down from

res in her honour; the good citizens draw the curtains to gaze out upon her beauty, stretching their lazy limbs. In winter Dawn arises to the sound of chattering

y. At the first glimmer of light he leapt to his window, and whether Dawn rose broken upon the peaks or solemn on the plain, whether she wandered mysteriously down old winding streets, or s

inite aim, and day after day he approached this certain goal, fired by the eloquence of the mysterious stranger. This night, being among the high mountains, he had found no inn; however, undaunted, he lay down on the roadside for an hour or two, then rose and strode on, pack on shoulder, through the shadows. Who could be tired of

led down in cascades behind the wall become a quiet and solemn river below leading to a curved strip of sea, of an intense unearthly colour, southern, fantastic, beyond all belief, and the sound of rushing waters seemed the only sound in the world. But most surprising of all, on a rocky mound between the mountains and the bay rose the white city of Alsander, with her legendary towers and red roofs all dreaming in the sunlight. In such deep slumber lay that perfect city, the boy held the very sight of it to be a dream. For there surely dwelt the good King and the bad King, the younger son and the three princesses, the dwarf, the giant an

land where bloom

voice and the little green lizards fled

c tastes a self-evident mark of their superiority over the mass of men, who, herding together with vivacious chatter, much love-making, and explosion of corks, crowd to the prettiest places they know to enjoy Bank Holiday. Your lonely man claims a special communion with God or with the Spirit of Nature, or with the Rosicrucian mysteries of his own soul, so that his ramble be

ffable grandeur and unspeakable majesty of Nature, does not ardently aspire to hold at the same moment communion with some divinely tender female heart, to read in those liquid eyes his own reflections purged of their dross and

were only the two pails she carried, slung from a yoke that passed behind her neck. "Life for me," said Norman to himself, as he and the girl drew near to each other at the combined rate of six miles an hour, "is crude marble, and I have come here to carve it into flowers, and the flowers of youth are the fairest of them all." Please

many novelists, ballad-makers, jongleurs, troubadours, minstrels, poets, and bards have sung the p

all love's

o new song

ng the old

countenance with intellect shining in her eyes," or even in a candid moment declare her to possess "a haunting plainness all her own." But apart from

ionate, not mysterious, but unreal from her very loveliness, a nymph, not of the woods or rivers, but of the sea-yet not of the tempestuous main-no tall sa

e same painters (whom all we word-workers envy bitterly but dare not say so) have shown how many confluent colours-hyacinth and blue and red and deep red gold, gleam in the shadowy hollows of the hair we fools call dark. ... Dark! As the sea-water in a sunli

her eyes-are they not al

air-but not the dark blue of a rock pool nor yet quite the light broken blue of the blinking waves in the calm and brilliant bay. Her eyes were of a light dry fire-the blue not of sea nor of sky, but rather o

, and gleams of blue water glinting behind the trellis of the jasmine, and the sea air slightly touching the colour of all the flowers. Have you not seen the flowers in that Italian pictur

et? Ah, never: but as you leave the g

days when the world was young. The chains of commerce and the shackles of class,-as it we

ended for her, for she seemed to wait for him t

he approached, in the honeyed and so

rman had been learning it and talking it to himself ever since the tramp he met in the night had directed his thoughts and

ained simplicity and slight mispronunciation that we all of us employ for

gla

rst Englishman I have ever s

indeed unwilling, to deprec

slowly, labouring with the strange ton

hink it p

that Norman's arms twitched and ac

your eyes ar

ou think they are?" she ask

never seen such blue

sure that they

tle bright clouds, and shone at that moment like a lustrous emerald. But he simply said tha

y long in this countr

I shall

ck quite nervously, daring no more to

" she said.

me is

think that this bashful northerner needed encoura

Norman, looki

ane though splendid hour, Norman, that reserved young Englishman, considered such encouragement sufficient. He went deliberately and took the pails off the girl's shoulders, as though he w

ill her whole body unstiffened. Norman had adopted to good purpose the principle tha

near the spring. Norman ruffled his hair in embarrassment. Peronella murmured something about Fate. No

ng to stay?" asked

you as

t you rea

here for a ... for a ... damn," said Norman in English

anted a rest, and you won't

nella, you know how hard it is to talk a foreign tongue. I have learn

to hear men from Ulmreich talking Alsandrian. They make a horrible harsh noise, although the

h with a smile, "that it is just twenty min

el

"I like you very much," but in southern lan

ized him by

u do not mean it. Yes, say it even if you do not mean it; I love to h

" said Norm

girls like this in England, and

te different,"

it ag

, I really

ent of making this startling declaration; his eyes were heavy with

lking fearful nonsense. You must come and fin

ve hours,"

o walking in the night. W

in the inn last night, and I

se long legs!" she added, pointing to them with a laugh. "No wonder they go far. I have never seen such long legs, except on a gra

as I told you. Perhaps you can find

perhaps I might not. I do not think

hould I trouble

to behave, none at all

cried the boy, "if

never again to squeeze my bre

ill promise eve

parkling, "you had better come and live with my mother

not trusting himsel

my-mother-and-me, th

d the boy was really getting seriousl

lace Hotel. Most foreigners do. Ours is a very poor house. But the Palace Hotel is not really a palace. Wi

think we live in snow houses and get our hear

her, highly pleased at hi

ts of things. You do not know what tongues they have, the old women of the town. I should be shamed an

ding. It is so much easier to be metaphoric

m perfectly. The Count with the white imperial has just observed, "La vera educazione, il segreto del progresso umano, e ideale." You admire the limpidity of his thought, the purity of his enunciation, and your own knowledge of a tongue so rece

useness dism

erstand a word. You are dreadfully s

icked up two pebbles, o

he said,

ghtly with a mincing gait, while the tall one paced behind in gigantic strides, reverent and slow. At the stick she put another great pebble, squat and dumpy, to do duty for Mamma. The lady pebble tapped at the door and was admitted; the tall

"do you underst

filled them and placed them lovingly on her back. She went a full hundred yards ahead, and then waved her hand,

ausicaa into the city of the Phoeacian