“I don’t know,” he said, looking up at the pale moon through a tangle of leafy branches. “Somehow I have the notion that anything I want to do will be foolish.... I used to trust in myself. I used to believe this sort of thing:—it’s by Bliss Carman, the man that wrote the vagabond poems.—
“‘Keep thou, by some large instinct,
Unwasted, fair and whole,
The innocence of nature,
The ardor of the soul—
“And through the realms of being
Thou art at liberty
To pass, enjoy, and linger,
Inviolate, and free!’”
“And don’t you believe that now, Felix?”