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"The pleasures permitted him by law were far from satisfying him." There comes in the minor note. After that grand opening, after that crash upon the organ, "remarkable"—even among lovers, still questing lovers—the tone softens to our common dream. It is the weeping of Achilles, it is the sleep of Charlemagne, it is the dog of Ulysses—it is that domestic lesser something in the hero which is common to us all. There are laws: especially laws divine. They permit us this and that—the more gratitude to them. But, oh! my friends, the things they fend away! "Visitors are requested not to touch," says the ordinance in the bazaar; though it also has a sign above it "Entry free," and the same is true of this world. You may desire—desire is put quite lavishly at your disposition. But when it comes to enjoyment, there are restrictions, little friend.

Achmet was, I take it, from his name, employment and longitude (and latitude) (30° 2" N., 31° 16" E.—or thereabouts—I date from Greenwich, not from Paris or the Azores) a servant of Mahound and his law, the Mahoundish law. He might drink no wine—except champagne, if you call that a wine. No liqueur except crême de Menthe. No beer of the Franks. He might not (I understand—but this may be mere legend) exceed four wives. The pastime of divorce was open to him only under certain limitations: for instance, he had to return the dowers. He was under the law. And though this same law gave him much to delight his soul, gardens and good food, adventure, praise and a sort of monotonous music sung through the nose, horseback riding and camel-back riding, the dawn, the sea, the moon, and day and night, and the iron titles of the night—yet was he not satisfied. Nay, these things were far from satisfying him, says the text. For he desired what the law does not forbid, indeed, but also cannot give. He sought the great human converse, the plenitude, the deep embrace. Therefore, did his great soul starve and weaken, and attempt recovery again if only to pursue what never yet was attained: the quarry that fails the hunter, the pearl that slips back into the sea. The law did its best. It said: "I am for your good. I desire your happiness. Come, you may play with dolls and go a walk after lessons," but he turned away and sickened. "He was far from satisfied." He had heard the fairy horn. He had caught the savour of what content might be: a hint, a summons; and "he was far from satisfied."