Drawn westward by her art toward the scene of the great enterprise, he reaches the village on the border of the wilderness, and from the legend current among the rustics inferring more definitely the character of his mission, he accepts it in the true chivalric spirit of faith, love and hope. His squire, or man-at-arms, who has followed him heretofore with an unquestioning fidelity, consents to incur the risks, though he has a very imperfect apprehension of the heroic undertaking; but the devotion of a faithful follower answers instead of knowledge in his rank of service. He would rather encounter a dozen flesh and blood swordsmen than one ghostly foe; nevertheless, where his master leads he will follow, whatever the character of the fight. The knight comprehends the nature of the conflict fully; it is not with flesh and blood, but with “spiritual wickedness in high places” that he “has his warfare.” To him the great battle is not in the outward and actual, but is transferred to the inward and spiritual sphere—into the real life—whence the ultimate facts of existence derive all their currents and ends. So felt the hero who said, in the great faith, “we have our conversation in heaven”—“we sit in heavenly places;” and so felt and thought the reformer who deliberately threw his ink-stand at the devils’ head. The region of the ideal is the fields of the highest heroism, and every life given to the world in noble service and generous sacrifice is living in the spirit sphere in familiar sympathy with the good, and constant strife with evil angels. This faith is the main impulse in all chivalric action; even a heroic poem cannot be created without it. It cannot be false, for it differs nothing in the constancy and efficiency of its presence from the most palpable facts, and is proved true by the test of harmonizing with all other truth.