Naked, without wings, a genius, like a faun, with nothing bestial, On the solid ground he springeth; but the ground, with counter-action, Up to ether sends him flying; with the second, third rebounding Touches he the vaulted roof.

Henceforth he can in experience nowhere find what had constituted his joy for so many years, and what had even been the inmost content of his life; yet he does not consume himself in idle lamentations, of which we know so many in the prose and verse of others, but he resolves upon counter-action.

The best counter-action to all this, he believed, was cheerfulness; in his opinion, only what was regarded with serenity would be rightly seen.

At the time when Caesar refused to rise to receive the Senate, many of the members withdrew in silence, and with looks of offended dignity When the crown was placed upon his statue or upon his own brow, a portion of the populace would applaud with loud acclamations; and whenever he disavowed these acts, either by words or counter-actions of his own, an equally loud acclamation would arise from the other side.

It is the inexactitude and inadequacy of our language which creates much of the confusion of thought in this matter; we have the same term for action destined to achieve a given end and for a counter-action destined to prevent it.