Page:The cream of the jest; a comedy of evasions (IA creamofjestcomed00caberich).pdf/216

 Ettarre such adoration as he had always wistfully hoped he might entertain toward some woman some day, and had not ever known in his waking hours. It was sober truth he had spoken at Storisende: "There is no woman like you in my country, Ettarre. I can find no woman anywhere resembling you whom dreams alone may win to." But now at last, even though it were only in dreams, he loved as he had always dimly felt he was capable of loving Even the old lost faculty of verse-making seemed to come back to him with this change, and he began again to fashion rhymes, elaborating bright odd vignettes of foiled love in out-of-the-way epochs and surroundings. These were the verses included, later, under the general title of "Dramatis Personæ," in his Chimes at Midnight.

He wrote of foiled love necessarily, since not even as a lover might he win to success. It was the cream of some supernal jest that he might not touch Ettarre; that done, though but by accident, the dream ended, and the universe seemed to fold about him, just as a hand closes. He came to understand the reason of this. "Love must