Page:Genius, and other essays.djvu/233

KING—"THE FROLIC AND THE GENTLE" whether it was on this ornamental journey that Clarence King's genius led him to the imperishable Helmet of Mambrino, now hung (by proxy) from its arm of wrought iron in the upper chambers of the Century. Whether it was then or afterward that he conceived his epistle to Don Horacio, and therewith imprisoned the very soul of Spain in the flask of his translucent English, the feat was equally enduring. Nothing comparable to the flavor of his style is to be found elsewhere, unless in the fantasy of his fellow-Centurion to whose loiterings in Mexico we owe "San Antonio of the Gardens" and successive companion-pieces. King's speech and writ were iridescent with the imagination of the born romancer. Judge of the statue by the fragment, and think of what was lost to literature by the fact that it was not his vocation, but his accomplishment. Nor was it his lot to escape enrollment with the inheritors of unfulfilled renown by winning, like the most distinguished of his poet friends, a place in history as one of the arbiters of civilization, and one of those who shape the destinies of their own lands. None the less, the by-play of some men has a quality unattained by a host of devotees who make its acquisition the labor of their workaday lives.

Quis desiderio sit pudor! As I humbly stood on one side, that arctic morning when the choice and true followed his remains down the aisle, I knew that deep in the souls of all, however freezing the bitter wind, the memory of King was enshrined forever, and that his Manes would have no cause to make complaint of benefits forgot. [219]