an opportunity to come my way, that I might render her the service my love for her deserves. What, then, prevents me — now that this rare opportunity has been given me — from asking on her behalf? Nothing. And here I have decided, with strength and faith — and I wondered at myself and at her: how had this thought not occurred to me from the very start? It would have shortened the road!

I ask for my country!! Thus my mind was settled — how happy a thought!!

I ask for my country. And yet — though the country is the moun-tains and the rivers and the plains and the sky, it is also these human souls who people these mountains, make these plains fertile, and tend the cedars and the sky. Am I then to return to the point from which I began, and ask on behalf of mortals as perishable as I?

No matter. I shall ask for the people of my country, perishable though they be, and I shall ask for them qualities that will not perish even if they perish — qualities their descendants will inherit from their forebears, and by which my country may be enabled to rise from its stumble and be delivered...

And behold, the messenger of good, shaking me by the shoulder and saying: "Ten seconds, and I shall leave you without your having decided anything. Ask within them, or the chance will escape you forever." I woke from my heedlessness and cried out in haste: I ask for my country that her people be arrayed in steadfast-ness, sacrifice, and order. Scarcely had I finished my request when the houri was a trace where once she stood — she went as she had come. I came to myself and began to blame and scold myself: I had wasted a precious opportunity in which I could have made my coun-try mistress of the world without rival, and I had not done it; I had cost my country her sovereignty, betrayed her and betrayed my feeling for her! And I began to sob in the depths of my soul with pain and grief at this dreadful notion of mine, and my agitation did not subside until I heard a voice calling to me, saying:

"Cease your weeping, woman, and know that by the request you made you have clothed your country in a garment that does not

perish. You want her to be mis-tress of the world — and so she is; for mastery comes to no people among the peoples unless its individuals adorn themselves with those very qualities you asked for the people of your country. So let your eye be comforted and your mind be at ease: you have done your duty in the best of ways...

Rise, and lift your gaze to the mountains of your country: you will see greenery covering their

summits, which but a moment ago were bare and barren, and the towering trees bending over the slopes and the turnings of the road, heralding a fertile, happy age. Cast your gaze over the wide plains, three quarters of which were a thing utterly for-gotten: see how the peasant has bestirred himself and made them sprout after their dryness, and tended them after their neglect, and brought