arts to
be assured of the continuity of identity was a proof that such a
craving must find its fulfilment. "A pleasant dream!" he said. "One
might as well affirm that the universal desire for wealth and health
was a proof that all would be ultimately healthy and wealthy."

But though I understood little, and remembered less, I felt somehow
that it did me good to be brought face to face with these austere
problems. It had a bracing effect to have my comfortable intuitions
plucked from me, and to be bidden to walk alone. It was vaguely
inspiring to look into the misty world that lies behind history and
religion and science, the world where one can perhaps be sure of
nothing except of one's own consciousness, and not too sure of that.
Bracing I say, because of its bareness and precariousness, its sense of
ultimate insecurity. I came back to earth not discouraged or dismayed,
but more conscious than ever of the urgency of practical problems and
the actuality of life. And so, as I say, out of my breathless ramble
among ultimate causes and conceptions, I came back to the world with a
great sense of zest and relief, as the diver of whom I spoke sees the
water grow paler and greener before his swimming eyes, and next moment
feels the sunlight about him and sees the willows and the river-bank. I
came back filled with a sense of far-off possibilities, and yet more
sure than ever that we must neither idle nor despair, but walk swiftly
and patiently and help each other along. Not only did I feel my duty to
my fellows to be more clear and sure; but my own need of help, my own
insignificance, to be more pleasantly insistent. Out of the world where
I was only sure of my own consciousness I came down into the world
where I am no less practically sure of the presence of millions of
similar souls, very blind and weak, perhaps, but very real and dear. On
those cloudy hills I had gone astray as a sheep that is lost; and then
suddenly there was the sense of the shepherd walking near me--the
shepherd himself!--for the philosopher was only a lesser kind of angel
bearing a vial in his hands; the blessed sense of being searched for
and guided and tenderly chidden and included in the welcome fold. I
hope that my philosopher may yet walk on the hills with me, if only for
the sake of the love I bear the green valleys; and when I see the great
stream passing silently from translucent pool to pool, overhung by
rowans and sun-warmed rocks, I shall be