To this hard saying of his father’s the young man devoted many hours of scrutiny. He turned again and again to the pages of those ancient authors he had made his own. But even these in their wisdom could shed no light upon the dark path upon which he was now entered. When, having overcome his first dismay that these friends of his youth, having connived at his self-deception, should now play him false, and, pale with conflict, he turned sternly to confront the crisis of his fate, he strove to make himself familiar with the writings of the later schoolmen, those authors of modern growth at whom his instinct shuddered as abortions, or perverted births. He burnt the midnight lamp full many nights. He attended the ignoble duties of the day as formerly, rendering his service scrupulously in return for the pieces of silver he received. But, in the little room, he spent the long watches of the night in profound intercourse with himself and with the modern spirit. Never before had he addressed himself to the study of natural objects in their relations to their surroundings. The wondrous subtleties of these modern authors repelled him constantly, for with all their faculties, which were trained to a perilous point, they were often inept, and inclined to be gross. Yet there were many things pertaining to his own condition which he was now beginning dimly to perceive, which they taught him how to appraise in the scales of his reason; but often in the midnight hours they caused him to shed tears. “Dost thou forget the Book of the Ages, my beloved?” said his father one night, as he was immersed with a countenance of despair in these remorseless pages. His father took down the massive tome from the shelf, and laid it open at a familiar passage, which his own eyes were never weary of conning. “Let us not forget the rotations of the circle, beloved one,” said his father. “Must we not ever return by the path that we went upon?” It brought unspeakable joy to the young man that, in spite of many months of intercourse with the modern authors, his father’s great tome still retained the power to afford him consolation. “These dread speculations which come no-whence and return no-whither,” said the young man, “appear to cast a green haze, as of putrefying flesh, upon the minds of these modern authors, who strive to fill eternity itself with the laughter of Bedlam.” * * * * * One day of autumn the young man walked abroad with his father until they came to the woods. Here in a sombre and quiet glade, which the winds had already stripped, he gathered flowers. “I think, my father,” he said as his slender fingers wove them together with a piece of grass, “I shall now have the courage to offer these beautiful creatures of the fields to that goddess who is always in my dreams.”