“Ubi Felicitas? Running, pursuing and finding nothing,” said Domitia as she went forth.
The sun was hot. She passed under an arched trellis with vines trained over it; the swelling bunches hung down within.
At intervals in the arcade were openings through which could be seen the still lake, and beyond the beautiful ridges of the limestone Sabine Mountains. The air was musical with the hum of bees.
Domitia paced up and down this walk for some while.
Presently the Magus appeared at the end, under the guidance of the girl Euphrosyne.
He approached, bowing at intervals, till he reached Domitia, when he stood still.
“Ubi Felicitas?” asked she. And when he raised his eyebrows in question, she added in explanation: “There is a picture in the atrium representing a damsel in pursuit of a butterfly, and beneath is the legend I have just quoted. When she catches the butterfly it will not content her. It will be a dead pinch of dust. It is now some months since you spoke on the Artemis, when I asked you a question, and then you were forced to admit that all your science was built up on conjecture, and that there was no certainty underlying it. But a guess is better than nothing, and a guess that carries the moral sense with it in approval, may come near to the truth. I recall all you then said. Do not repeat it, but answer my question, Ubi Felicitas? I asked it of my mother, and she said that it was to be found in Push. If I asked Senecio, he would say in Equanimity. Where say you that it is to be found?”
“The soul of man is a ray out of the Godhead,” answered the Magus, “it is enveloped, depressed, smothered by matter; and the straining of the spirit in man after happiness is the striving of his divine nature to emancipate itself from the thraldom of matter and return to Him from whom the ray emanated.”
“Then felicity is to be found—?”
“In the disengagement of the good in man from matter, which presses it down, and which is evil.”