“That’s too misty for me!”
Stanny suddenly sprang to Wilfred’s defense. It was one of his most endearing qualities that he would never allow anybody else to abuse Wilfred the way he did himself. “Wilfred is perfectly consistent,” he insisted. “You’ll see that when you know him better. He has constructed a sort of scheme for himself, out of movement, change, balance; give and take; forward and back; and so on. He’s a philosophic chameleon.”
They all laughed.
“Just the same,” grumbled Taswell, “it destroys everything to say that the best men go to the bottom!”
“Your best need not be my best,” said Wilfred.
Taswell stared at him in exasperation.
“I like that figure about the rapids,” said Stanny, off on a tack of his own. “That’s what life is, a rapids. And you have no boat. You are up to your knees in it; or your waist; or your neck; just as your luck may be. With the current tearing at you without a letup. And no shores to climb out on. Steep walls of rock on either side. All you can do is to lean against the current, and drag your feet up, one step at a time.”
Wilfred experienced an actual physical pain that made him grit his teeth. “That’s all damn nonsense!” he said, exasperated with compassion. “The rock of a fixed idea that you’ve been knocking your head against through life! Why insist on it, and make yourself wretched? It is equally as true to say that one may sail downstream with life. The purest pleasure I ever experienced was in shooting rapids in a small boat. I didn’t know what was around the bend, either!”
“Oh well, it’s all talk!” said Stanny, smiling and unconvinced.
Wilfred looked at him, biting his lip. Often one longed to beat the wrong-headed, unhappy Stanny.