So must primitive man have crouched and agonised in that first dim dawn of intelligence. Within that brain of a child already glimmers the idea of something greater than physical force; within that brute man Mind is beginning its supreme struggle over Matter. Here is the birth of brain domination. Here is the savage, thwarted, mocked, impotent; yet trying with every fibre of his being to enter that world of thought which he is so conscious of, and cannot yet understand. Pathetic! Yes, it typifies the ceaseless struggle of man from the beginning, the agony of effort by which he has raised himself from the mire. Far from a Newton, a Darwin, a Goethe, this crude, elementary Thinker! Yet, with his brain of a child as he struggles for Light, who shall say he is not in his way as great. Salute him! He stands for the cumulative effort of the race.
Helstern himself, as he stood there in his black cloak, leaning on his stick with the gargoyle head, was no negligible figure. I was struck by a resemblance to a great actor, and the thought came that here, but for that misshapen foot, was a tragedian lost to the world. This was strengthened by the voice of the man. Helstern, in his deep vibrating tones, could have held a crowd spellbound while he told them how he missed his street car.
“Great,” I said, indicating the statue.
“Great, man! It’s a glory and a despair. To me it represents the vast striving of the spirit, and its impotence to express its dreams. I, too, think as greatly as a Rodin, but my efforts to give my thoughts a form are only a mockery and a pain. I, too, have agonised to do; yet what am I confronted with?—Failure. For twenty years I’ve studied, worked, dreamed of success, and to-day I am as far as ever from the goal. Yes, I realise my impotence. I have lived my life in vain. Old, grey, a cripple, a solitary. What is there left for me?”
He finished with a lofty gesture.
“Nothing left,” I said, “but to have a drink. Come on.”
But no. Helstern reposed on his dignity, and refused to throw off the mantle of gloom.
“I tell you what it is,” I suggested. “I think you’re in love.”
“Bah! I was never in love but once, and that was twenty years ago. We were going to be married. The day was fixed. Then on the marriage eve she went to try on the wedding gown. There was a large fire in the room, and suddenly as she was bending before the mirror to tie a riband, the flimsy robe caught the flame. In a moment she was ablaze. Screaming and panic-stricken she ran, only to fall unconscious. After three days of agony she died. I attended a funeral, not a wedding.”
I shuddered—not at his story, but because the incident occurred in my novel, The Cup and The Lip. Alas! How Life plagiarizes Fiction. I murmured huskily: