‘The subject for the good and wise man is his master faculty, as the body is for the physician and the trainer, and the soil is the subject for the husbandman. And the work of the good and wise man is to use appearances according to Nature. For it is the nature of every soul to consent to what is good and reject what is evil, and to hold back about what is uncertain; and thus to be moved to pursue the good and avoid the evil, and neither way for what is neither good nor evil.’
In the light of these words John’s mind grew serene as a landscape on which the moon is shining; and he asked himself why he had hesitated if marriage were the state which he was destined to fulfil?
‘If a habit affects us, against that must we endeavour to find some remedy? And what remedy is to be found against a
