KINDS OF EXPERIENCE NECESSARY

penter, with characteristic humour and detachment, gives expression to this difficulty.

Ever men say: Hère lies the truth, There lies the tnith. Take this, cast that aside. Throw in thy lot with us. We are the wise, the rest are fools.

I go with thèse wise folk a little way, and then I draw back again ; I throw in my lot with them, and then, alas ! I throw in with the fools.

I -cannot for the life of me answer the questions that are continually being asked.

Is it for pleasure and the world and the présent, or for death and translation and spirituality, that we must 1 ive< ? Is it for asceticism and control, or for ingenuity and sweet enjoyment ?

Is it best to be an idler or a worker, an accepted person or a criminal ?

Which is the most désirable or useful trade — to be a potter or a moulder or a parson or a prostitute or a town-ooundllor ?

Is it better to be surly and rude, or sympathetic and suave, to be quick-t^npered or patient, cute or simple, moral or immoral ?

To join th^sodety for the suppression of Vice, or to be one of the persons to be supprest ?

For the life of me I caimot answer ail thèse questions ; •I acknowledge that I am a fooL . . .

TiU I think of the Présent and the work I hâve actually to do — and then comes relief.

For the moment I am pledged to this or that ;

Yet I feel that in the end I must acœpt ail.

And shall be oontent with nothiog less than aU.

And in another place he asks of a would-be saviour this critical question, "^Could you be yourself one of the lost ?" *

* T.D., p^iSo

ALL EXPËltlENCE COtTNTS 185

Before we can be " even as the gods/' we must partake of the fulness of the knowledge both of " good " and of " evil." Ail expérience is necessary ; and since this is so, it will be provided for in the nature of things. It may require the ^' other heights (and depths) in other lives/' but we may be sure that ail we need awaits us. It is seeking us out in its own time ; there is no need to hurry hère and there, seeking many différent experiments in expérience ; but we must not fail to keep our appointment with the expérience that is at hand. Ail expérience counts, It is the pathway to Paradise ; or, more explidtly, it is the way by which the lover with " awful footsteps " advances in the " great secret' cavems " * of the heart. This mysterious figure haxmts the stanzas of that fine poem " After Long Ages." Under the names of " the Stranger/' or " the Prince of Love," or "the Master," Carpenter refers to the Soûl which gradually cornes to itself amid the manifold expérience — the uses and the calls — of mortal wajrfaring. Something Ues deep enf olded which, in due time, shall appear. The world-'heart, and the man-heart, are alike prenant with this hope.

In the house a Stranger waits for the children; he stands by in the dark and leans over them and \vatches their faucea, as they watch the dancing blue flame ;

He moves along the roads tinseen, and waits in the great city, and in the woods at early dawn he waits.