Page:Captain Craig; a book of poems.djvu/42

And one in hell without enjoying it;
And each had been dissuaded neither more
Nor less thereafter. There are such on earth
As might have been composed primarily
For object-lessons: he was one of them,
And she—the devil makes us hesitate:
'T is easy to read words writ well with ink
That makes a good black mark on smooth white paper;
But words are done sometimes with other ink
Whereof the smooth white paper gives no sign
Till science brings it out; and here we come
To knowledge, and the way to test a devil.

"To the greater number of us, you contend,
This demon of the sunlight is a stranger;
But if you break the sunlight of yourself,
Project it, and observe the quaint shades of it,
I have a shrewd suspicion you may find
That even as a name lives unrevealed
In ink that waits an agent, so it is
The devil—or this devil—hides himself
To all the diagnoses we have made
Save one,—sincerity. The quest is hard—
As hard as truth; but once we seem to know
That his compound obsequiousness prevails
Unferreted within us, we may find