TO THE LIGHTHOUSEDid she complete what he began? With equal com-placence she saw his misery, his meanness, and historture. That dream, of sharing, completing, of find-ing in solitude on the beach an answer, was then buta reflection in a mirror, and the mirror itself wasbut the surface glassiness which forms in quiescencewhen the nobler powers sleep beneath? Impatient,despairing yet loth to go (for beauty offers herlures, has her consolations), to pace the beach wasimpossible; contemplation was unendurable; themirror was broken.[Mr. Carmichael brought out a volume of poemsthat spring, which had an unexpected success. Thewar, people said, had revived their interest inpoetry.]VIINight after night, summer and winter, the tor-ment of storms, the arrow-like stillness of fineweather, held their court without interference. Lis-tening (had there been any one to listen) from theupper rooms of the empty house only gigantic chaosstreaked with lightning could have been heardtumbling and tossing, as the winds and waves dis-ported themselves like the amorphous bulks ofleviathans whose brows are pierced by no light of202