No ground could yield eternally without rest.

Querida was clever enough to know that; and he had been stupid enough to ignore it--even disbelieve it, contemptuous of precept and proverb and wise saw, buoyed above apprehension by consciousness and faith in his own inexhaustible energy.
And, after all, something really seemed to have happened to him.

He almost admitted it now for the first time--considered the proposition silently, wearily, without any definite idea of analysing it, without even the desire to solve it.
Somehow, at some time, he had lost pleasure in his powers, faith in his capacity, desire for the future.

What had satisfied him yesterday, to-day became contemptible.

Farther than ever, farther than the farthest, stars receded the phantoms of the great Masters.