“I believe that I am in the way of that salvation, look you, for I know now that there is hardly a thing upon the earth which I cannot do without. That being so, and all things of equal value, or of no value, _I have them all_. They are at the disposal of that part of myself which enters no markets and cannot be chaffered away. Wind, rain, and sun have bleached me; dinners of herbs have reduced my flesh to obedience; incessant toil, with meditation under the stars, have driven my thoughts along channels graved deep by patient plodding of the field. I am become one with Nature. I have watched the wheeling of the seasons until, to escape vertigo, I picture myself as a fixed point, and see the spheres in their courses revolve about me.” Mystic sayings, aphorisms oozed from him like resin from a pine. “It is error to suppose that discomfort is holy. Holiness is harmony. Men have lost sight of the sanctity of the body. Rightly considered, indigestion is a great sin.” “Passion, which is a state of becoming, is not holy, for holiness is a state of being. But it is noble, because it is a straining after appeasement, which is a harmony. “Man is an ape, or a god, but certainly a god in this, that he can make himself either. It is by no means certain, however, that this potentiality is not also possessed by the ape. “Appeasement of passion is fulfilment of our being, which out of ferment makes wine, though riot seeks rest.” He was not always so transcendental. Here we have him closer to the matter. “A woman when she loves is a seraph winged. When she does not she is a chrysalis, a husk, or a shell. In love she follows the man, but appears to fly him, as a shepherd goes before the sheep he is really driving. Out of it she is an empty vase, to be revered by us for the sacred wine which she may hold, as a priest handles fearfully the chalice. “She has but one law, the law of her love, which says to her, 'Give, give, give.' See here how she differs from the man, to whom love is but one of many healthy appetites--not a divine mission. Love, hunger, hunting, or a taste for picture-dealing, say to him, 'Take, take.' “Yet it is no wonder that the sexes go in fear of each other, each a mystery to each. For my part, I have never been close to a woman without a desire to cover my eyes.” And here he got level with her, and showed her radiant beside him. “A young woman with shining eyes, blown-back hair and face on fire, holding out her heart from the threshold, stretching it out at arms' length, crying, 'Who will take this? To whom may I give it?' A vision here of Heaven's core of light. I have seen it. I, Senhouse, have seen the Holy Grail.