none. Wisdom has will power sufficient to
rectify all that does not deal death to the body; it will even at times
invade the narrow domain of external fatality. It is true that we must
have amassed considerable and patient treasure within us for this will
power to find the resources it needs.

15. The statue of destiny casts a huge shadow over the valley, which it
seems to enshroud in gloom; but this shadow has clearest outline for
such as look down from the mountain. We are born, it may be, with the
shadow upon us; but to many men is it granted to emerge from beneath
it; and even though infirmity or weakness keep us, till death, confined
in these sombre regions, still we can fly thence at times on the wings
of our hopes and our thoughts. There may well be some few over whom
Fate exerts a more tyrannous power, by virtue of instinct, heredity and
other laws more relentless still, more profound and obscure; but even
when we writhe beneath unmerited, crushing misfortune; even when
fortune compels us to do the thing we should never have done, had our
hands been free; even then, when the deed has been done, the misfortune
has happened, it still rests with ourselves to deny her the least
influence on that which shall come to pass in our soul. She may strike
at the heart that is eager for good, but still is she helpless to keep
back the light that shall stream to this heart from the error
acknowledged, the pain undergone. It is not in her power to prevent the
soul from transforming each single affliction into thoughts, into
feelings and treasure she dare not profane. Be her empire never so
great over all things external, she always must halt when she finds on
the threshold a silent guardian of the inner life. And if it be granted
her then to pass through to the hidden dwelling, it is but as a
bountiful guest she will enter, bringing with her new pledges of peace:
refreshing the slumberous air, and making still clearer the light, the
tranquillity deeper--illumining all the horizon.

16. Let us ask once again: what had destiny done if she had, by some
blunder, lured Epicurus, or Marcus Aurelius, or Antoninus Pius into the
snares that she laid around Oedipus? I will even assume that she might
have compelled Antoninus, for instance, to murder his father, and, all
unwittingly, to profane the couch of his mother. Would that noble
sovereign's soul have been hopelessly crushed? Would the end of it all
not have been as the end of all