And so, reluctantly, he left the artists, and continued his pilgrimage. As he departed, a symphony orchestra was performing Mozart's Requiem, and this perfect artistry, serene and soaring, dedicated to the very Source, and, it seemed, instinct with something of its light, comprised a fitting and a reassuring farewell.
As the dying strains played upon him, he was filled again with the ravishing verses of Sidney Lanier. Out of the high beauty, these words mingled clearly with his consciousness:
O long ago the billow-flow of sense
Aroused by passion's windy vehemence
Upbore me out of depths to heights intense,
But not to thee, Nirvana.
It was so true, and so much beyond him! The meaning was never clear, and yet, against it, all else was a deeper darkness. But it called him, and that was sufficient. He must continue, patiently, on the way.
The walk was pleasant, and the evergreens were soughing gently, as he passed. Midway in the afternoon he sat down by a convenient spring, and ate quickly a light meal. As he was resting, a man came through the trees before him: balding and rather stout, and apparently approaching the end of middle age. He did not know whether he cared to talk with this man. But he had little choice, for he hailed him with a sort of good-natured camaraderie, and came and sat beside him.
"You may consider me a philosopher," the man announced; "that is, in the fine old sense, a lover of wisdom. I don't think that will frighten you away," he chuckled. "I think I can see that you agree with Socrates: that you consider an unexamined life to be a life that is not worth living. Is this correct?"
He replied that it was, and that he was a seeker of wisdom, and hoped one day to prove to be a lover of it—after he had found it.
The philosopher smiled, and continued, "Perhaps it is best to be a lover of the search; perhaps, indeed, the search itself is the greatest wisdom. This used to be considered a platitude," he laughed, "when education was more wide-spread in the world. But I have never found anything bright and brand new that matches it. I do not want to be one of those who 'give to dust that is a little gilt more laud than gilt o'erdusted'. How about you?"
He smiled agreement. He was beginning somewhat to like this man: but still he could not respect him, either as an embodiment of wisdom or as a seeker of it. His mind seemed only clever, and rather lazy and complacent with its cleverness: it seemed quite incapable of any really deep probing, or high flight. This was not his idea of a philosopher.