Phantastes, A Faerie Romance

"Who lives, he dies; who dies, he is alive."

One evening, as he stood gazing on his treasure, he thought he

saw a faint expression of self-consciousness on her countenance, as if

she surmised that passionate eyes were fixed upon her. This grew; till

at last the red blood rose over her neck, and cheek, and brow. Cosmo's

longing to approach her became almost delirious. This night she was

dressed in an evening costume, resplendent with diamonds. This could add

nothing to her beauty, but it presented it in a new aspect; enabled her

loveliness to make a new manifestation of itself in a new embodiment.

For essential beauty is infinite; and, as the soul of Nature needs an

endless succession of varied forms to embody her loveliness, countless

faces of beauty springing forth, not any two the same, at any one of

her heart-throbs; so the individual form needs an infinite change of its

environments, to enable it to uncover all the phases of its loveliness.

Diamonds glittered from amidst her hair, half hidden in its luxuriance,

like stars through dark rain-clouds; and the bracelets on her white arms

flashed all the colours of a rainbow of lightnings, as she lifted her

snowy hands to cover her burning face. But her beauty shone down all its

adornment. "If I might have but one of her feet to kiss," thought Cosmo,

"I should be content." Alas! he deceived himself, for passion is never

content. Nor did he know that there are TWO ways out of her enchanted

house. But, suddenly, as if the pang had been driven into his heart

from without, revealing itself first in pain, and afterwards in definite

form, the thought darted into his mind, "She has a lover somewhere.

Remembered words of his bring the colour on her face now. I am nowhere

to her. She lives in another world all day, and all night, after she

leaves me. Why does she come and make me love her, till I, a strong man,

am too faint to look upon her more?" He looked again, and her face was

pale as a lily. A sorrowful compassion seemed to rebuke the glitter of

the restless jewels, and the slow tears rose in her eyes. She left her

room sooner this evening than was her wont. Cosmo remained alone, with a

feeling as if his bosom had been suddenly left empty and hollow, and the

weight of the whole world was crushing in its walls. The next evening,

for the first time since she began to come, she came not.