Love and Life | Page 2

to transport her to a palace where everything delightful and
valuable was at her service, feasts spread, music playing, all her wishes
fulfilled, but all by invisible hands. At night in the dark, she was
conscious of a presence who called himself her husband, showed the
fondest affection for her, and promised her all sorts of glory and bliss,
if she would be patient and obedient for a time.
This lasted till yearnings awoke to see her family. She obtained consent
with much difficulty and many warnings. Then the splendour in which
she lived excited the jealousy of her sisters, and they persuaded her that
her visitor was really the monster who would deceive her and devour

her. They thus induced her to accept a lamp with which to gaze on him
when asleep. She obeyed them, then beholding the exquisite beauty of
the sleeping god of love, she hung over him in rapture till a drop of the
hot oil fell on his shoulder and awoke him. He sprang up, sorrowfully
reproached her with having ruined herself and him, and flew away,
letting her fall as she clung to him.
The palace was broken up, the wrath of Venus pursued her; Ceres and
all the other deities chased her from their temples; even when she
would have drowned herself, the river god took her in his arms, and
laid her on the bank. Only Pan had pity on her, and counselled her to
submit to Venus, and do her bidding implicitly as the only hope of
regaining her lost husband.
Venus spurned her at first, and then made her a slave, setting her first to
sort a huge heap of every kind of grain in a single day. The ants,
secretly commanded by Cupid, did this for her. Next, she was to get a
lock of golden wool from a ram feeding in a valley closed in by
inaccessible rocks; but this was procured for her by an eagle; and lastly,
Venus, declaring that her own beauty had been impaired by attendance
on her injured son, commanded Psyche to visit the Infernal Regions
and obtain from Proserpine a closed box of cosmetic which was on no
account to be opened. Psyche thought death alone could bring her to
these realms, and was about to throw herself from a tower, when a
voice instructed her how to enter a cavern, and propitiate Cerberus with
cakes after the approved fashion.
She thus reached Proserpine's throne, and obtained the casket, but when
she had again reached the earth, she reflected that if Venus's beauty
were impaired by anxiety, her own must have suffered far more; and
the prohibition having of course been only intended to stimulate her
curiosity, she opened the casket, out of which came the baneful fumes
of Death! Just, however, as she fell down overpowered, her husband,
who had been shut up by Venus, came to the rescue, and finding
himself unable to restore her, cried aloud to Jupiter, who heard his
prayer, reanimated Psyche, and gave her a place among the gods.


CHAPTERS

.
I. A SYLLABUB PARTY. II. THE HOUSE OF DELAVIE. III.
AMONG THE COWSLIPS. IV. MY LADY'S MISSIVE. V. THE
SUMMONS. VI. DISAPPOINTED LOVE. VII. ALL ALONE. VIII.
THE ENCHANTED CASTLE. IX. THE TRIAD. X. THE DARK
CHAMBER. XI. A VOICE FROM THE GRAVE. XII. THE SHAFTS
OF PHOEBE. XIII. THE FLUTTER OF HIS WINGS. XIV. THE
CANON OF WINDSOR. XV. THE QUEEN OF BEAUTY. XVI.
AUGURIES. XVII. THE VICTIM DEMANDED. XVIII. THE
PROPOSAL. XIX. WOOING IN THE DARK. XX. THE MUFFLED
BRIDEGROOM. XXI. THE SISTER'S MEETING XXII. A FATAL
SPARK. XXIII. WRATH AND DESOLATION. XXIV. THE
WANDERER. XXV. VANISHED. XXVI. THE TRACES. XXVII.
CYTHEREA'S BOWER. XXVIII. THE ROUT. XXIX. A BLACK
BLONDEL. XXX. THE FIRST TASK. XXXI. THE SECOND TASK.
XXXII. LIONS. XXXIII. THE COSMETIC. XXXIV. DOWN THE
RIVER. XXXV. THE RETURN. XXXVI. WAKING. XXXVII.
MAKING THE BEST OF IT.

LOVE AND LIFE.


CHAPTER I
. A SYLLABUB PARTY.
Oft had I shadowed such a group Of beauties that were born In teacup
times of hood and hoop, And when the patch was worn; And legs and
arms with love-knots gay. About me leaped and laughed The modish
Cupid of the day, And shrilled his tinselled shaft.--Tennyson.
If times differ, human nature and national character vary but little; and
thus, in looking back on former times, we are by turns startled by what
is curiously like, and curiously unlike, our own sayings and doings.
The feelings of a retired officer of the nineteenth century expecting the
return of his daughters from the first gaiety of the youngest darling, are
probably not dissimilar to those of Major Delavie, in the earlier half of
the seventeen hundreds, as he sat in the deep