Most of us have to pass
through such ordeals before character and conviction receive their final
bias; before human nature has its wild trouble, and then settles into
"cold rock and quiet world;" which any lesser after-shocks may modify,
but cannot radically change.
I tried to think. I felt that to be wholly a man I should turn from those
eyes drawing me on. I recalled the words of Clovelly, who had said to me
that afternoon, half laughingly: "Dr. Marmion, I wonder how many of us
wish ourselves transported permanently to that time when we didn't know
champagne from 'alter feiner madeira' or dry hock from sweet sauterne;
when a pretty face made us feel ready to abjure all the sinful lusts of
the flesh and become inheritors of the kingdom of heaven? Egad! I should
like to feel it once again. But how can we, when we have been intoxicated
with many things; when we are drunk with success and experience; have
hung on the fringe of unrighteousness; and know the world backward, and
ourselves mercilessly?"
Was I, like the drunkard, coming surely to the time when I could no
longer say yes to my wisdom, or no to my weakness? I knew that, an hour
before, in filling a phial with medicine, I found I was doing it
mechanically, and had to begin over again, making an effort to keep my
mind to my task.
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