So every night the Princess went down to the Wizard's cave while all the court were sleeping. And the people wondered at her more and more, and said, "How much she knows! How wise she is!"
When the three years had gone by the Wizard said to her, "Go! I can teach you no more now. You are as wise as I." Then the Princess thanked him and went back to her father's palace.
She was very wise. She knew the languages of all animals. The fishes came from the deep at her call, and the birds from the trees. She could tell when the winds would rise, and when the sea would be still. She could have turned her enemies to stone, or given untold wealth to her friends. But for all that, when she smiled, her lips were very sad, and her eyes were always full of care. She said she was weary, and her father thought she was sick, and would have sent for the physicians, but she stopped him.
"How should physicians help me, my father," she said, "seeing that I know more than they?"
One night, a year after she had taken her last lesson from the Wizard, she arose and returned to his cave, and he raised his eyes and saw her standing before him as formerly.
"What do you want?" he said. "I have taught you all I know."
"You have taught me much," she said, falling on her knees beside him, "yet I am ignorant of one thing—teach me that also—how to be happy.'
"Nay," said the Wizard with a very mournful smile; "I cannot teach you that, for I do not know it myself. Go and ask it of them who know and are wiser than I."
"Then the Princess left the cave and wandered down to the sea-shore."—P. 178.