This question is hard to answer in direct words; if, indeed, such an answer can be given. But analogy may point the way where the solution may be sought. In breathing we take a certain quantity of air into the lungs, and with this we can imitate in miniature the mighty wind of heaven. We can produce a feeble semblance of nature: a tempest in a tea-cup, a gale to blow and even swamp a paper boat. And we can say: “I do this; it is my breath.” But we cannot blow our breath against a hurricane, still less hold the trade winds in our lungs. Yet the powers of heaven are within us; the nature of the intelligences which guide the world-forces is blended with our own, and could we realise this and forget our outer selves, the very winds would be our instruments. So it is in life. While a man clings to his outer self—aye, and even to any one of the forms he assumes when this “mortal coil” is cast aside—so long is he trying to blow aside a hurricane with the breath of his lungs. It is useless and idle such an endeavour; for the great winds of life must, sooner or later, sweep him away. But if he changes his attitude _in himself_, if he acts on the faith that his body, his desires, his passions, his brain, are not himself, though he has charge of them, and is responsible for them; if he tries to deal with them as parts of nature, then he may hope to become one with the great tides of being, and reach the peaceful place of safe self-forgetfulness at last. “FAUST.” [Illustration: decorative separator] “Fear is the slave of pain and Rebellion her captive; Endurance her free companion and Patience her master. And the husband of Pain is Rapture. But the souls are few in whom that marriage is consummated.” (L. S. C.). =THE BLOSSOM AND THE FRUIT=: _THE TRUE STORY OF A MAGICIAN_.[26] (_Continued._) --------------------- BY MABEL COLLINS, Author of “THE PRETTIEST WOMAN IN WARSAW,” &c., &c., And Scribe of “THE IDYLL OF THE WHITE LOTUS,” and “THROUGH THE GATES OF GOLD.” --------------------- ----- Footnote 26: The sub-title, “a tale of love and magic,” having been simultaneously used by myself, Mr. Joseph Hutton, and another author, I think it best to change mine for one certainly less pretty, but equally descriptive. Is not this simultaneous use also a “sign of the times”? ----- CHAPTER III. In a chapel of the great Cathedral in the city there was at certain hours always a priest who held there his confessional.