266 Shadowings 



wiser heads the riddle of his new emotions. 

 Then he makes his confession, with a faint intui- 

 tive fear of being laughed at, but with a strange, 

 fresh sense of rapture in the telling. Laughed at 

 he is tenderly ; but this does not embarrass 

 him nearly so much as the fact that he can get 

 no answer to his question, to the simple 

 " Why ? " made so interesting by his frank sur- 

 prise and his timid blushes. No one is able to 

 enlighten him ; but all can sympathize with the 

 bewilderment of his sudden awakening from the 

 long soul-sleep of childhood. 



Perhaps that " Why ? " never can be fully an- 

 swered. But the mystery that prompted it con- 

 stantly tempts one to theorize ; and theories may 

 have a worth independent of immediate results. 

 Had it not been for old theories concerning the 

 Unknowable, what should we have been able to 

 learn about the Knowable ? Was it not while 

 in pursuit of the Impossible that we stumbled 

 upon the undreamed-of and infinitely marvellous 

 Possible ? 



Why indeed should a pair of human eyes 

 appear for a time to us so beautiful that, when 

 likening their radiance to splendor of diamond 



