"I am not arguing about individuals. I think you mistaken in regard to Walpurga; but, admitting that you are right, of this, at least, we can be sure: morality does not depend upon so-called education or ignorance, belief or unbelief. The heart and mind which have regained purity and steadfastness alone possess true knowledge. Extend your view beyond details and take in the whole--that alone can comfort and reconcile you."
"I see where you are, but I cannot get up there. I can't always be looking through your telescope that shows naught but blue sky. I am too weak. I know what you mean; you say, in effect: 'Rise above these few people, above this span of space known as a kingdom--compared with the universe, they are but as so many blades of grass, or a mere clod of earth.'"
Gunther nodded a pleased assent, but the queen, in a sad voice, added:
"Yes, but this space and these people constitute my world. Is purity merely imaginary? If it be not about us, where can it be found?"
"Within ourselves," replied Gunther. "If it dwell within us, it is everywhere; if not, it is nowhere. He who asks for more, has not yet passed the threshold. His heart is not yet what it should be. True love for the things of this earth, and for God, the final cause of all, does not ask for love in return. We love the divine spark that dwells in creatures themselves unconscious of it: creatures who are wretched, debased and, as the church has it, unredeemed. My master taught me that the purest joys arise from this love of God or of eternally pure nature. I made this truth my own, and you can and ought to do likewise. This park is yours; but the birds that dwell in it, the air, the light, its beauty, are not yours alone, but are shared with you by all. So long as the world is ours, in the vulgar sense of the word, we may love it; but when we have made it our own, in a purer and better sense, no one can take it from us. The great thing is to be strong and to know that hatred is death, that love alone is life, and that the amount of love that we possess is the measure of the life and the divinity that dwells within us."
Gunther rose and was about to withdraw. He feared lest excessive thought might over-agitate the queen, who, however, motioned him to remain. He sat down again.
"You cannot imagine--" said the queen, after a long pause, "but that is one of the cant phrases that we have learned by heart. I mean just the reverse of what I have said. You can imagine the change that your words have effected in me."
"I can conceive it."
"Let me ask a few more questions. I believe--nay, I am sure--that on the height you occupy, and toward which you would fain lead me, there dwells eternal peace. But it seems so cold and lonely up there. I am oppressed with a sense of fear, just as if I were in a balloon ascending into a rarer atmosphere, while more and more ballast was ever being thrown out. I don't know how to make my meaning clear to you. I don't understand how to keep up affectionate relations with those about me, and yet regard them from a distance, as it were--looking upon their deeds as the mere action and reaction of natural forces. It seems to me as if, at that height, every sound and every image must vanish into thin air."
"Certainly, Your Majesty. There is a realm of thought in which hearing and sight do not exist, where there is pure thought and nothing more."