And thy eyes, those colourless, deep eyes, are speaking too . . . and as mute and enigmatic is their speech.
But where is thy Œdipus?
Alas! it's not enough to don the peasant smock to become thy Œdipus, oh Sphinx of all the Russias!
- Dec. 1878.
THE NYMPHS
I stood before a chain of beautiful mountains forming a semicircle. A young, green forest covered them from summit to base.
Limpidly blue above them was the southern sky; on the heights the sunbeams rioted; below, half-hidden in the grass, swift brooks were babbling.
And the old fable came to my mind, how in the first century after Christ's birth, a Greek ship was sailing on the Ægean Sea.
The hour was mid-day. . . . It was still weather. And suddenly up aloft, above the pilot's head, some one called distinctly, 'When thou sailest by the island, shout in a loud voice, "Great Pan is dead!"'
The pilot was amazed . . . afraid. But when
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