"You're thinking," said Drene coolly, "what a god I once set up on
the altar of domesticity. I used to talk a lot once, didn't I?--a
hell of a clamor I made in eulogy of the domestic virtues. Well,
only idiots retain the same opinions longer than twentyfour hours.
Fixity is imbecility; the inconstant alone progress; dissatisfaction
is only a synonym for intelligence; contentment translated means
stagnation. . . . . I have changed my opinion concerning the virtues
of domesticity."
Guilder said, in his even, moderate voice: "Your logic is weird, Drene: in one breath you say you have changed
your opinion; in another that you are content; in another that
contentment is the fixedness of imbecility--"
Drene, reddening slightly, half rose on one elbow from his couch: "What I meant was that I change in my convictions from day to day,
without reproaching myself with inconstancy. What I believed with
all my heart to be sacred yesterday I find a barrier to-day; and
push it aside and go on."
"Toward what?"
"I go on, that's all I know--toward sanctuary."
"You mean professionally."
"In every way--ethically--spiritually. The gods of yesterday, too,
were very real--yesterday."
"Drene, a man may change and progress on his way toward what never
changes. But standards remained fixed. They were there in the
beginning; they are immutable. If they shifted, humanity could have
no goal."
"Is there a goal?"
"Where are you going, then?"
"Just on."
"In your profession there is a goal toward which you sculptors all
journey."
"Perfection?"
Guilder nodded.
"But," smiled Drene, "no two sculptors ever see it alike."
"It is still Perfection. It is still the goal to the color-blind
and normal alike, whatever they call it, however, they visualize it.
That is its only importance; it is The Goal. . . . . In things
spiritual the same obtains--whether one's vision embraces Nirvana,
or the Algonquin Ocean of Light, or a pallid Christ half hidden in
floating clouds--Drene, it is all one, all one. It is not the Goal
that changes; only our intelligence concerning its existence and its
immortality."
Drene lay looking at him: "You never knew pain--real pain, did you? The world never ended for
you, did it?"
"In one manner or another we all must be reborn before we can
progress."
"That is a cant phrase."
"No; there's truth under the cant. Under all the sleek, smooth,
canty phrases of ecclesiastic proverb, precept, axiom, and lore,
there is truth worth the sifting out."