But the particular Narcissus of whom I write was a long way off that
thirteenth maid in the days of his antiquarian rambles and his
Pagan-Catholic ardours, and the above digression is at least out of
date.
A copy of Keats which I have by me as I write is a memorial of one of
the pretty loves typical of that period. It is marked all through in
black lead--not so gracefully as one would have expected from the 'taper
fingers' which held the pencil, but rather, it would appear, more with
regard to emphasis than grace. Narcissus had lent it to the queen of the
hour with special instructions to that end, so that when it came to him
again he might ravish his soul with the hugging assurance given by the
thick lead to certain ecstatic lines of _Endymion,_ such as--
'My soul doth melt
For the unhappy youth;'
'He surely cannot now
Thirst for another love;'
and luxuriate in a genial sense of godship where the tremulous pencil
had left the record of a sigh against--
'Each tender maiden whom he once thought fair.'
But it was a magnanimous godship; and, after a moment's leaning back
with closed eyes, to draw in all the sweet incense, how nobly would he
act, in imaginative vignette, the King Cophetua to this poor suppliant
of love; with what a generous waiving of his power--and with what a
grace!--did he see himself raising her from her knees, and seating her
at his right hand. Yet those pencil-marks, alas! mark but a secondary
interest in that volume.
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