ns stagnation..... I
have changed my opinion concerning the virtues of domesticity."

Guilder said, in his even, moderate voice:

"Your logic is weird, Drene: in one breath you say you have changed your
opinion; in another that you are content; in another that contentment is
the fixedness of imbecility--"

Drene, reddening slightly, half rose on one elbow from his couch:

"What I meant was that I change in my convictions from day to day,
without reproaching myself with inconstancy. What I believed with all my
heart to be sacred yesterday I find a barrier to-day; and push it aside
and go on."

"Toward what?"

"I go on, that's all I know--toward sanctuary."

"You mean professionally."

"In every way--ethically--spiritually. The gods of yesterday, too, were
very real--yesterday."

"Drene, a man may change and progress on his way toward what never
changes. But standards remained fixed. They were there in the beginning;
they are immutable. If they shifted, humanity could have no goal."

"Is there a goal?"

"Where are you going, then?"

"Just on."

"In your profession there is a goal toward which you sculptors all
journey."

"Perfection?"

Guilder nodded.

"But," smiled Drene, "no two sculptors ever see it alike."

"It is still Perfection. It is still the goal to the color-blind and
normal alike, whatever they call it, however, they visualize it. That
is its only importance; it is The Goal..... In things spiritual the same
obtains--whether one's vision embraces Nirvana, or the Algonquin Ocean
of Light, or a pallid Christ half hidden in floating clouds--Drene,
it is all one, all one. It is not the Goal that changes; only our
intelligence concerning its existence and its immortality."

Drene lay looking at him:

"You never knew pain--real pain, did you? The world never ended for you,
did it?"

"In one manner or another we all must be reborn before we can progress."

"That is a cant phrase."

"No; there's truth under the cant. Under all the sleek, smooth, canty
phrases of ecclesiastic proverb, precept, axiom, and lore, there is
truth worth the sifting out."

"You are welcome to think so, Guilder."

"You also could come to no other conclusion if you took the trouble to
investigate."

Drene smiled:

"Morals are no more than folk-ways--merely mental condition consequent
upon custom. Spiritual beliefs are radically dependant upon folkways
and the resultant physical and mental condition of the hum