“When he had me so tied up in my own explanations of what keeping faith really means, that there wasn’t any possible way out for me, he told me the story I have just told you, and made me an astonishing proposal. I have sometimes wished I had accepted it.”
Hannah Sanburn paused for a long time, staring at the fire.
“He offered,” she said at last, “to find some one else for my position here; to smuggle me into the Ahbor Valley; and to teach me more knowledge than Solomon knew—if I would give unqualified consent, and would agree to stay up there and help him educate that baby.”
“And—?”
“And I refused,” she said quietly. “Won’t you put some more wood on the fire?”
And this I know: that when the gods have use for us they blindfold us, because if we should see and comprehend the outcome we should grow so vain that not even the gods could preserve us from destruction.
Vanity, self-righteousness and sin, these three are one, whose complements are meekness, self-will and indifference.
Meekness is not modesty. Meekness is an insult to the Soul. But out of modesty comes wisdom, because in modesty the gods can find expression.
The wise gods do not corrupt modesty with wealth or fame, but its reward is in well-doing and in a satisfying inner vision.