With reverence must we draw near to them, be they lowly or arrogant, inattentive or lost in dreams, be they smiling still or plunged in tears; for they know the things that we do not know, and have a lamp that we have lost. Their abiding-place is at the foot itself of the Inevitable, whose well-worn paths are visible to them more clearly than to us. And thence it is that their strange intuitions have come to them, their gravity at which we wonder; and we feel that, even in their most trifling actions, they are conscious of being upheld by the strong, unerring hands of the gods. I said before that they drew us nearer to the gates of our being: verily might we believe, when we are with them, that that primeval gate is opening, amidst the bewildering whisper that doubtless waited on the birth of things, then when speech was yet hushed, for fear lest command or forbidding should issue forth, unheard.... She will never cross the threshold of that gate; and she awaits us within, where are the fountain-heads. And when we come and knock from without, and she opens to our bidding, her hand will still keep hold of latch and key. She will look, for one instant, at the man who has been sent to her, and in that brief moment she has learned all that had to be learned, and the years to come have trembled to the end of time.... Who shall tell us of what consists the first look of love, ‘that magic wand made of a ray of broken light,’ the ray that has issued forth from the eternal home of our being, that has transformed two souls, and given them twenty centuries of youth? The door may open again, or close; pay no heed, nor make further effort, for all is decided. She knows. She will no longer concern herself with the things you do, or say, or even think; and if she notice them, it will be but with a smile, and unconsciously will she fling from her all that does not help to confirm the certitudes of that first glance. And if you think you have deceived her, and that her impression is wrong, be sure that it is she who is right, and you yourself who are mistaken; for you are more truly that which you are in her eyes than that which in your soul you believe yourself to be, and this even though she may forever misinterpret the meaning of a gesture, a smile or a tear....