Of God and heaven he had heard so little, that they were to him what
fairy-land is to a child: something real, but not here; very far off.
His brain, greedy, dwarfed, full of thwarted energy and unused powers,
questioned these men and women going by, coldly, bitterly, that night.
Was it not his right to live as they,--a pure life, a good, true-hearted
life, full of beauty and kind words? He only wanted to know how to use
the strength within him. His heart warmed, as he thought of it. He
suffered himself to think of it longer. If he took the money?
Then he saw himself as he might be, strong, helpful, kindly. The night
crept on, as this one image slowly evolved itself from the crowd of
other thoughts and stood triumphant. He looked at it. As he might be!
What wonder, if it blinded him to delirium,--the madness that underlies
all revolution, all progress, and all fall?
You laugh at the shallow temptation? You see the error underlying
its argument so clearly,--that to him a true life was one of full
development rather than self-restraint? that he was deaf to the higher
tone in a cry of voluntary suffering for truth's sake than in the
fullest flow of spontaneous harmony? I do not plead his cause.
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