do not know the real world. You are the dupes of a Phantasm
which you take for Substance." With that he passed on, and the
man of Science was left in the company of the traveler who had first
accosted him. "What person is that?" asked the former, looking
after the retreating figure of him who had just spoken. "He is a
poet," returned the grave-faced traveler; "we have both of us been
beyond the sunset to see the lovely Princess who rules that wonderful
country, and we left it together on a journey to this world of yours."
"Beyond the sunset!" repeated the other, incredulously. "That is
the land of shadows; when the world was younger they used to say
the old Gods lived there." "Maybe they live there still,' said the
traveler, "for the Princess is of their kith and lineage." "A pretty
fable, indeed," responded the scientific votary. "But we know now
that all that kind of thing is sheer nonsense, and worse, for it
is the basis of the effete old-world sentiment which forms the most
formidable obstacle to Progress, and which Science even yet finds
it hard to overthrow. But what is that strange singing I hear
beneath your cloak?"

It was the bird which the traveler had received from the Princess.
He drew it forth, but did not say whose gift it was nor whence it
came, because of the contempt with which his companion had spoken
of the mystic country and its Rulers. Already he began to waver
in his loyalty towards the Princess, and to desire greatly the
knowledges of which the stranger told him. For this traveler,
though he cared nothing for pleasure, or for the beauty of sensuous
things, was greatly taken by the wish to be wise; only he did not
rightly know in what wisdom consists. He thought it lay in the
acquirement of facts, whereas really it is the power by which facts
are transcended.