Book 4 (Part II)

51 The ambition of every boy is to be an engine-driver. Some attain it, and remain there all their lives. But in the majority of cases the Understanding grows faster than the Will, and long before the boy is in a position to attain his wish he has already forgotten it. In other cases the Understanding never grows beyond a certain point, and the Will persists without intelligence. The business man (for example) has wished for ease and comfort, and to this end goes daily to his office and slaves under a more cruel taskmaster than the meanest of the workmen in his pay; he decides to retire, and finds that life is empty. The end has been swallowed up in the means. Only those are happy who have desired the unattainable. All possessions, the material and the spiritual alike, are but dust. Love, sorrow, and compassion are three sisters who, if they seem freed from this curse, are only so because of their relation to The Unsatisfied. Beauty is itself so unattainable that it escapes altogether; and the true artist, like the true mystic, can never rest. To him the Magician is but a servant. His wand is of infinite length; it is the creative Mahalingam. The difficulty with such an one is naturally that his wand being very