A FREE MAN'S WORSHIP 53 



temple can be entered. The gate of the cavern is despair, 

 and its floor is paved with the gravestones of abandoned 

 hopes. There Self must die ; there the eagerness, the 

 greed of untamed desire must be slain, for only so can 

 the soul be freed from the empire of Fate. But out of 

 the cavern the Gate of Renunciation leads again to the 

 daylight of wisdom, by whose radiance a new insight, a 

 new joy, a new tenderness, shine forth to gladden the 

 pilgrim's heart. 



When, without the bitterness of impotent rebellion, 

 we have learnt both to resign ourselves to the outward 

 rule of Fate and to recognise that the non-human world 

 is unworthy of our worship, it becomes possible at last 

 so to transform and refashion the unconscious universe, 

 so to transmute it in the crucible of imagination, that a 

 new image of shining gold replaces the old idol of clay. 

 In all the multiform facts of the world in the visual 

 shapes of trees and mountains and clouds, in the events 

 of the life of man, even in the very omnipotence of Death 

 the insight of creative idealism can find the reflection 

 of a beauty which its own thoughts first made. In this 

 way mind asserts its subtle mastery over the thoughtless 

 forces of Nature. The more evil the material with which 

 it deals, the more thwarting to untrained desire, the 

 greater is its achievement in inducing the reluctant rock 

 to yield up its hidden treasures, the prouder its victory 

 in compelling the opposing forces to swell the pageant of 

 its triumph. Of all the arts, Tragedy is the proudest, the 

 most triumphant ; for it builds its shining citadel in the 

 very centre of the enemy's country, on the very summit 

 of his highest mountain ; from its impregnable watch- 

 towers, his camps and arsenals, his columns and forts, 

 are all revealed ; within its walls the free life continues, 

 while the legions of Death and Pain and Despair, and all 



