She | Page 6

me. Personally I have made up my mind to
refrain from comments. At first I was inclined to believe that this
history of a woman on whom, clothed in the majesty of her almost
endless years, the shadow of Eternity itself lay like the dark wing of
Night, was some gigantic allegory of which I could not catch the
meaning. Then I thought that it might be a bold attempt to portray the
possible results of practical immortality, informing the substance of a
mortal who yet drew her strength from Earth, and in whose human
bosom passions yet rose and fell and beat as in the undying world
around her the winds and the tides rise and fall and beat unceasingly.
But as I went on I abandoned that idea also. To me the story seems to
bear the stamp of truth upon its face. Its explanation I must leave to
others, and with this slight preface, which circumstances make
necessary, I introduce the world to Ayesha and the Caves of Kôr.--The
Editor.
P.S.--There is on consideration one circumstance that, after a reperusal
of this history, struck me with so much force that I cannot resist calling
the attention of the reader to it. He will observe that so far as we are
made acquainted with him there appears to be nothing in the character
of Leo Vincey which in the opinion of most people would have been
likely to attract an intellect so powerful as that of Ayesha. He is not
even, at any rate to my view, particularly interesting. Indeed, one might
imagine that Mr. Holly would under ordinary circumstances have easily
outstripped him in the favour of /She/. Can it be that extremes meet,
and that the very excess and splendour of her mind led her by means of
some strange physical reaction to worship at the shrine of matter? Was

that ancient Kallikrates nothing but a splendid animal loved for his
hereditary Greek beauty? Or is the true explanation what I believe it to
be-- namely, that Ayesha, seeing further than we can see, perceived the
germ and smouldering spark of greatness which lay hid within her
lover's soul, and well knew that under the influence of her gift of life,
watered by her wisdom, and shone upon with the sunshine of her
presence, it would bloom like a flower and flash out like a star, filling
the world with light and fragrance?
Here also I am not able to answer, but must leave the reader to form his
own judgment on the facts before him, as detailed by Mr. Holly in the
following pages.

I
MY VISITOR
There are some events of which each circumstance and surrounding
detail seems to be graven on the memory in such fashion that we
cannot forget it, and so it is with the scene that I am about to describe.
It rises as clearly before my mind at this moment as thought it had
happened but yesterday.
It was in this very month something over twenty years ago that I,
Ludwig Horace Holly, was sitting one night in my rooms at Cambridge,
grinding away at some mathematical work, I forget what. I was to go
up for my fellowship within a week, and was expected by my tutor and
my college generally to distinguish myself. At last, wearied out, I flung
my book down, and, going to the mantelpiece, took down a pipe and
filled it. There was a candle burning on the mantelpiece, and a long,
narrow glass at the back of it; and as I was in the act of lighting the
pipe I caught sight of my own countenance in the glass, and paused to
reflect. The lighted match burnt away till it scorched my fingers,
forcing me to drop it; but still I stood and stared at myself in the glass,
and reflected.

"Well," I said aloud, at last, "it is to be hoped that I shall be able to do
something with the inside of my head, for I shall certainly never do
anything by the help of the outside."
This remark will doubtless strike anybody who reads it as being
slightly obscure, but I was in reality alluding to my physical
deficiencies. Most men of twenty-two are endowed at any rate with
some share of the comeliness of youth, but to me even this was denied.
Short, thick-set, and deep-chested almost to deformity, with long
sinewy arms, heavy features, deep-set grey eyes, a low brow half
overgrown with a mop of thick black hair, like a deserted clearing on
which the forest had once more begun to encroach; such was my
appearance nearly a quarter of a century ago, and such, with some
modification, it is to this day. Like Cain, I was branded--branded