Aphrodite or the Nazarene? Which is peace--as the bird and the beast
of the field get it--the fallow futile content, or--"

He suddenly stopped, hiccoughed, then hurriedly drawing paper before him,
he sat down. For an hour he wrote. It grew darker. He pushed the table
nearer the window, and the singing of the choir in the church came in
upon him as his pen seemed to etch words into the paper, firm, eccentric,
meaning. What he wrote that evening has been preserved, and the yellow
sheets lie loosely in a black despatch-box which contains the few records
Charley Steele left behind him. What he wrote that night was the note of
his mind, the key to all those strange events through which he began to
move two hours after the lines were written:

Over thy face is a veil of white sea-mist,
Only thine eyes shine like stars; bless or blight me,
I will hold close to the leash at thy wrist,
O Aphrodite!

Thou in the East and I here in the West,
Under our newer skies purple and pleasant:
Who shall decide which is better--attest,
Saga or peasant?

Thou with Serapis, Osiris, and Isis,
I with Jehovah, in vapours and shadows;
Thou with the gods' joy-enhancing devices,
Sweet-smelling meadows!

What is there given us?--Food and some raiment,
Toiling to reach to some Patmian haven,