drop, more
and more of the elixir of life into his cup, he
is strong enough to breathe this intense air and
to live upon it. Then if he die or if he live in
physical form, alike he goes on and finds new
and finer joys, more perfect and satisfying
experiences, with every breath he draws in and
gives out.

CHAPTER II

THE MYSTERY OF THRESHOLD

I

There is no doubt that at the entrance on
a new phase of life something has to be given
up. The child, when it has become the man,
puts away childish things. Saint Paul showed
in these words, and in many others which he
has left us, that he had tasted of the elixir of
life, that he was on his way towards the Gates
of Gold. With each drop of the divine draught
which is put into the cup of pleasure something
is purged away from that cup to make room
for the magic drop. For Nature deals with
her children generously: man's cup is always
full to the brim; and if he chooses to taste
of the fine and life-giving essence, he must
cast away something of the grosser and less
sensitive part of himself. This has to be done
daily, hourly, momently, in order that the
draught of life may steadily increase. And to
do this unflinchingly, a man must be his own
schoolmaster, must recognise that he is always
in need of wisdom, must be ready to practise
any austerities, to use the birch-rod unhesitatingly
against himself, in order to gain his
end. It becomes evident to any one who regards
the subject seriously, that only a man who has
the potentialities in him both of the voluptuary
and the stoic has any chance of entering
the Golden Gates. He must be capable of
testing and valuing to its most delicate fraction
every joy existence has to give; and he must
be capable of denying himself all pleasure, and
that without suffering from the denial. When
he has accomplished the development of this
double possibility, then he is able to begin
sifting his pleasures and taking away from his
consciousness those which belong absolutely to
the man of clay. When those are put back,
there is the next range of more refined pleasures
to be dealt with. The dealing with these
which will enable a man to find the essence of
life is not the method pursued by the stoic
philosopher. The stoic does not allow that
there is joy within pleasure, and by denying
himself the one loses the other. But the true
philosopher, who has studied life itself without
being bound by any system of thought, sees