Since not all voices may be attended, since some of them lie and many more speak loudly in the absence of knowledge, one must wait, Reuben guessed, for the sudden inner waking, the unsought recognition, the mind's clear declaration: This voice—(Why did you say to me, "Run, boy! Run!"—why?)—this voice is speaking not merely out of some other's need to assert, but speaking to me, and I understand what it says—some of it....
If we create the present by living it, then right and wrong are man-made. I will accept the verdicts of others in this matter if they seem reasonable to me, and just—not otherwise.
It was once proposed to me on excellent authority that the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. It seems to be necessary to hear much nonsense while waiting for the sound that rings true. I may be deceived again, many times, but I say it shall not be from any scared wish to believe.
Am I correct, Mr. Welland, in supposing that if doctrines of right and wrong are man-made, learning begins now?
Ben struggled through Tuesday morning's Greek and logic without serious discredit, and picked up only a few minor fresh scratches from the thorns of Latin grammar. He could not quite win clear of a mental shadow that had haunted him since waking after a dream not plainly remembered—a foreboding uneasiness something like that of a child who has wandered into a strange and exciting room: he has not been specifically forbidden to enter here, but knows he has not been granted permission either; presently someone may arrive and with the cool finality of adults chivy him back to the nursery where the toys have lost all magic.
In the afternoon Ben achieved brief glory, encountering an area of De Finibus in which Reuben had drilled him so briskly that error was nearly impossible. After this victory the deadly hour hand, the slightly less cruel minute hand, appeared to be creeping with better speed toward the beautiful moment of three o'clock, when Mr. Hibbs would snap his books shut, blow from the tops of them a little imaginary dust, and go away. Ru said once (a dreamy voice coming out of the dark of the bedroom when Ben thought he was asleep): "If I live to be old, I shall alway consider that the immortality of the soul sets in at three o'clock post meridian."
A resolution to go once more into Boston had grown today, less like a rational decision than like the climbing of a fever. With the lessons concluded, he would not, like a schoolboy, ask permission: he would simply go, as casually as Ru had been strolling over to Mr. Welland's cottage lately; if there should be consequences of disapproval from Mr. Hibbs or Uncle John himself, Ben supposed they would not be serious—in any case he could meet them with a man's calm, surely?
He tried (from two o'clock on) to lay it out serenely as a plan of campaign. One: he must speak with Faith again—briefly, soberly, a man of affairs saying a temporary good-bye. Two: he must interview Uncle John at the warehouse, in the cool atmosphere of business affairs, and pray for a definite answer, on the grounds that the time of Artemis' departure must be quite near. At this point the plan hazed up a little—Uncle John seldom stayed at the warehouse later than five o'clock. Well, Molly could make fair time into the city, and he would not remain long with Faith—he spent some effort here, defining a few poignant answers he would make to what she would say. Still, he had better prepare a second line of approach: if Uncle John had already left for Roxbury, he would seek out Captain Jenks himself, no less, beat down the devils of fear and self-consciousness so to put the matter plainly to the iron mountain and get an answer. After all, Jenks wasn't so bad. Honest and human. In fantasy Ben saw a gleam of rugged friendliness (respect?) in the little blue eyes....
Better have a third line. If Uncle John had left and Jenks could not be reached, lost in liquor or otherwise unavailable, then he could—oh, hell, ask around at the wharf anyway, find out when Artemis was expected to sail, since it seemed that Uncle John was unwilling to tell him. Tom Ball ought to know. Maybe he would run into Daniel Shawn again, and could, at the very least, learn whether Shawn was to sail as mate. On Sunday, Uncle John had been immune to approach, shut up in his study the better part of the day; yesterday evening he had displayed an impossible mood, his manner testy and faraway, his foot tormenting him. But with a plan of campaign you could always accomplish something. Couldn't you?...