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THE LABYRINTH
Man is a labyrinth. He is masked, and there are
masks over masks. When you have gone past his
first surface you come to a second. He is like
thousands of overpainted frescoes. His soul is a
mystic temple with a hundred and a thousand
standing-places further forward or further back.
His soul circulates in passages, hides in caves or
recesses, is missed among intricacies or complexities.
It has the power of metamorphosis and can lurk in
the by-ways of his being in strange guise. It
manifestly takes possession of his body, or it dwells
in dim caves and recesses, or marches soundingly
along corridors; it creeps insidiously through secret
mazes; it dwells lingeringly in empty chambers,
makes its exit stealthily by little doors leading as
it were to vast reservoirs; or hurriedly it traverses
many apartments to look from the outmost gate like a
newly risen moon. It is sometimes enthroned like
a king or a queen, or descending from the throne
trails long robes over marble. Or it is abased to a
slave or a prisoner and is confined in towers and
