should never have done, had our hands been free; even then, when the
deed has been done, the misfortune has happened, it still rests with
ourselves to deny her the least influence on that which shall come
to pass in our soul. She may strike at the heart that is eager for
good, but still is she helpless to keep back the light that shall
stream to this heart from the error acknowledged, the pain
undergone. It is not in her power to prevent the soul from
transforming each single affliction into thoughts, into feelings and
treasure she dare not profane. Be her empire never so great over all
things external, she always must halt when she finds on the
threshold a silent guardian of the inner life. And if it be granted
her then to pass through to the hidden dwelling, it is but as a
bountiful guest she will enter, bringing with her new pledges of
peace: refreshing the slumberous air, and making still clearer the
light, the tranquillity deeper--illumining all the horizon.

16. Let us ask once again: what had destiny done if she had, by some
blunder, lured Epicurus, or Marcus Aurelius, or Antoninus Pius into
the snares that she laid around Oedipus? I will even assume that she
might have compelled Antoninus, for instance, to murder his father,
and, all unwittingly, to profane the couch of his mother. Would that
noble sovereign's soul have been hopelessly crushed? Would the end
of it all not have been as the end of all dramas must be wherein the
sage is attacked--great sorrow surely, but also great radiance that
springs from this sorrow, and already is partly triumphant over the
shadow of grief? Needs must Antoninus have wept as all men must
weep; but tears can quench not one ray in the soul that shines with
no borrowed light. To the sage the road is long that leads from
grief to despair; it is a road untravelled by wisdom. When the soul
has attained such loftiness as the life of Antoninus shows us that