With its arms folded on its breast, it stood distant a few feet from Zanoni, and its low voice murmured gently, "My counsels were sweet to thee once; and once, night after night, thy soul could follow my wings through the untroubled splendours of the Infinite.

Now thou hast bound thyself back to the earth by its strongest chains, and the attraction to the clay is more potent than the sympathies that drew to thy charms the Dweller of the Starbeam and the Air.

When last thy soul hearkened to me, the senses already troubled thine intellect and obscured thy vision.

Once again I come to thee; but thy power even to summon me to thy side is fading from thy spirit, as sunshine fades from the wave when the winds drive the cloud between the ocean and the sky." "Alas, Adon-Ai!" answered the seer, mournfully, "I know too well the conditions of the being which thy presence was wont to rejoice.

I know that our wisdom comes but from the indifference to the things of the world which the wisdom masters.