"Even so, there is nothing appalling in Christianity. Merely choose the form best adapted to your individual needs."
"What would you have me do? Fill myself with sounding words and echoing phrases? I am doing better than that where I am. There is only one essential form of Christianity--you know what it is. I tell you I never will bow to a law that is not made for every man, rich or poor, cultured or crude, ignorant or learned. I never will take up the husks of a 'law adapted to individual needs.' That is merely making my own law over again, and I am leaving that. I am sick of exploiting myself. I despise a law that exploits the individual. I despise men in religious thought that exploit themselves and their own doctrines. I need wholly another discipline and I shall never bring myself to embrace it."
"You are closer to it than you think. Yet, for my part, I hate to see you lose your individuality--to let some one else do your thinking for you."
"A part of my individuality I should be gainer for losing. A part of it I wish to God some one had robbed me of long ago. But I hate to see you, Hamilton, deceive yourself with phrases. 'Let some one else do your thinking for you,'" Kimberly echoed, looking contemptuously away. "If empty words like that were all!"
"You are going a good way, Robert," said the surgeon, dryly.
"I wish I might go far."
"Parting company with a good many serious minds--not to say brilliant ones."
"What has their brilliancy ever done for me? I am tired of this rubbish of writing and words. Francis was worth libraries. I esteem what he did with his life more than I do the written words of ten thousand. He fought the real battle."
"Did he win?"
Kimberly's hand shot out. "If I knew! If I knew," he repeated doggedly. And then more slowly. "If I knew--I would follow him."