Yes, he thought, that's
about right. Then to make up something for an instance, just to spread
the idea as big as it ought properly to be, one might say that once
upon a time God gave our sun and all the other suns the slightest push
with His finger, _and they haven't done moving yet_.
And it seemed to him that, look where one pleased, one could see the
real work of the finger of God. It had been giving him, William Dale,
faint imperceptible pushes for fifteen years, and see now at the end
where it had pushed him. First it had pushed him upward, higher and
higher, to a position of conspicuous pride, to the topmost summit of a
fair mountain, where he could look round and say, "I have all that I
pined for. This is the world's castle, and I am the king of the
castle." Then it had begun to push him down the other side of this
mountain, the dark side, the side that was always in shadow, downward
and still downward to the miasmic unhealthy plain where all was
rankness, downward to the level of corruption and death. Yes, it had
brought him, the bold, proud law-maker, down and down till he stood no
higher than the victim of his law.
He remembered the common phrase--so often employed by
himself--comparing mice with men.
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