Then I told him how the town had tempted me, and we compared experiences.  We told of the times when we had come nigh forgetting.

“Just think,” said I to him, “I should never have found you had I been swallowed up in the town.”

“And I should never have lain at your feet in the sun,” he replied.  “You would never have noticed me in the town.”

IV.  “HOW THE TOWNSMAN TEMPTED ME”

“Once I was tempted by a townsman,” said the wanderer, “but instead of converting me with his town, he was himself converted by the country.

“For many years I wandered by seashores, asking questions of the sea.  When I came to the sea it was singing its melancholy song, the song that it has sung from its birth, and it paused neither to hear nor to answer me.  Ever rolling, ever breaking, ever weeping, it continued its indifferent labour.  I walked along its far-stretching sands, leaving footprints which it immediately effaced.  I clambered upon its cliffs and sat looking out to sea for days, my eyes shining like lighthouse fires.  But the sea revealed not itself to me.  Or perhaps it had no self to reveal.  And I could not reveal myself to it; but the sea expressed itself to me as a picture of my mystery.

“I wandered inland to placid lakes, the looking-glasses of the clouds.  I threw pebbles into their waters, disturbing their pure reflections, but the disturbances passed away harmlessly into nothingness, and the lakes once more reflected the sky.

“Then I said to my heart, ’We must wander over all the world in search of my homeland, but chance shall not be my guide.  I shall loose the reins to thee.  Where thou leadest I will follow.’

“I followed my heart through verdant valleys up into a mountain high above a great town.  And there for some while I made my abiding place.  For I had learned that from a mountain I could see further than from a valley.  In the towns my horizons had been all walls, but from this high mountain I looked far over the world.

* * * * *

“One day there came towards my mountain a townsman who tried to lure me to the city below.  He was too tired to climb up to me, but from low down he called out,’ You unhappy one, come down out of the height and live with us in the town.  We have learnt the art of curing all sorrow.  Let us teach you to forget it, and live among our many little happinesses.’

“And I answered him, ‘It is our glory that we shall never forget.’  Nevertheless I was tempted and came down.

“The townsman was exceedingly glad, and even before I reached the gates of his city he said to me, ’In after years you will remember me as the man who saved you.’

“‘How?’ said I.  ‘Am I already saved?’

“‘No,’ he replied.  ’But in the town is your salvation.  You will find work to do, and you will not need to return to your mountain to pray.  You will understand that work itself is prayer—­laborare est orare.  Your prayer towards the sky was barren and profitless, but prayer towards the earth, work, will give full satisfaction to your soul.’