of pure water, and be girt up anew with the strength that he needs to go on with his life. For here again reason is helpless, unable to comfort; she must halt on the threshold of the thief's last asylum, even as she must halt on the threshold of Job's resignation, of the love of Marcus Aurelius, of the sacrifice made by Antigone. She halts, is bewildered, she does not approve; and yet knows full well that to rise in revolt were only to combat the light whereof she is shadow; for amidst all this she is but as one who stands with the sun full upon him. His shadow is there at his feet; as he moves, it will follow; as he rises or stoops, its outline will alter; but this shadow is all he commands, that he masters, possesses, of the dazzling light that enfolds him. And so has reason her being, too, beneath a superior light, and the shadow cannot affect the calm, unvarying splendour. Far distant as Marcus Aurelius may be from the traitor, it is still from the selfsame well that they both draw the holy water that freshens their soul; and this well is not to be found in the intellect. For, strangely enough, it is not in our reason that moral life has its being; and he who would let reason govern his life would be the most wretched of men. There is not a virtue, a beautiful thought, or a generous deed, but has most of its roots hidden far away from that which can be understood or explained. Well might man be proud could he trace every virtue, and joy, and his whole inward life, to the one thing he truly possesses, the one thing on which he can depend--in a word, to his reason. But do what he will, the smallest event that arrives will quickly convince him that reason is wholly unable to offer him shelter; for in truth we are beings quite other than merely reasonable creatures.