The
gas in his eyes was an annoyance, but he did not realize it, and so did
not get up, as another man would have done, and put it out.
Certainly it was an extraordinary thing that the only critics he had
ever had in his life had all three attacked his theory of living at
precisely the same point. They had all three urged him to get in touch
with his environment. He himself could unanswerably demonstrate that in
such degree as he succeeded in isolating himself from his
environment--at least until his great work was done--in just that degree
would his life be successful. But these three seemed to declare, with
the confidence of those who state an axiom, that in just that degree was
his life a failure. Of course they could not demonstrate their
contention as he could demonstrate his, but the absence of reasoning did
not appear to shake their assurance in the smallest. Here then was
another apparent conflict of instinct with reason: their instinct with
his reason. Perhaps he might have dismissed the whole thing as merely
their religion, but that his father, with that mysterious letter of
counsel, was among them.
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