“Do not fear,” he said. “You are not of the kind that will ever grow old. True, in old age one’s energies fail, and one ceases to battle with life; but that is a very different thing. Provided it be what I take it to be, your sense of depression and weariness is a sign of vigour. Frequently the growings of a vivid, excitable intellect transcend the limits of everyday existence, and, finding no answer to what that intellect demands of life, become converted into despondency and a temporary dissatisfaction with life. The meaning of it is that the soul is sorrowful at having to ask life its secret. Perhaps such is the case with you. If so, you need not term it folly.”
She sighed, but, apparently, with relief at the thought that the danger was over, and that she had not fallen in her husband’s estimation.
“I am quite happy,” she repeated, “nor do I spend my time in dreaming, nor is my life monotonous. What more, then, is there for me to have? What do these questionings portend? They harass me like a sickness.”
“They are a spur to encourage a weak, groping intellect which has lacked full preparation. True, such depression and selfquestionings have caused many to lose their senses; but to others they seem mere formless visions, a mere fever of the brain.”
“To think that just when one’s happiness is full to overflowing, and one is thoroughly in love with life, there should come upon one a taint of sorrow!” she murmured.
“Yes; such is the payment exacted for the Promethean fire. You must not only endure, you must even love and respect, the sorrow and the doubts and the self-questionings of which you have spoken: for they constitute the excess, the luxury, of life, and show themselves most when happiness is at its zenith, and has alloyed with it no gross desires. Such troubles are powerless to spring to birth amid life which is ordinary and everyday; they cannot touch the individual who is forced to endure hardship and want. That is why the bulk of the crowd goes on its way without ever experiencing the cloud of doubt, the pain of self-questioning. To him or to her, however, who voluntarily goes to meet those difficulties they become welcome guests, not a scourge.”
“But one can never get even with them. To almost every one they bring sorrow and indifference.”
“Yes; but that does not last. Later they serve to shed light upon life, for they lead one to the edge of the abyss whence there is no return—then gently force one to turn once more and look upon life. Thus they seem to challenge one’s tried faculties in order that the latter may be prevented from sinking wholly into inertia.”
“And to think, also, that one should be disturbed by phantoms at all!” she lamented. “When all is bright, one’s life suddenly becomes overshadowed with some sinister influence. Is there no resource against it?”
“Yes, there is one. That resource lies in life itself. Without such phantoms and such questionings life would soon become a wearisome business.”