Jack and I went to Napoleon’s cabin and had lunch and then it began to snow and we tarried. And then the snow stopped and we set out, and the wolves came. How my blood ran chill as I heard their howling coming near and nearer. We were too far from Napoleon’s cabin to retreat, besides their howlings came from our rear.
I suppose I have no right to call old Devil by that name, as he was leader of the pack, but it fitted him so well.
There was no hesitation in his movements. As an arrow from a twanging bow-string he sprang at Jack’s throat. Of course, I only call them the World, the Flesh, and the Devil for the purposes of this narrative. I am not trying to turn my diary into an allegory. They were all devils, but I must individualize them. Devil was the biggest, strongest, fiercest.
When Jack learned by the howling of the wolves they were on our trail, he armed himself with a great club, and after arming me with a smaller club, he lifted me into the branches of a birch tree. Then he took up his stand, my defender, my savior, my hero. He stood with his back against the tree trunk.
His views of life are so noble, so broad, so profound. I have told him everything, that is, almost all about everything. This, of course, is since the fight. His comment was so far-reaching, so generous.
Folly visits most homes and most individuals sometimes in our lives. The thing is to come through it, and having come through it not to be worse than when going in, for we must be wiser. Our grip on life is stronger. To have made an error in younger life and to recognize that error makes us surer-footed on the trail of life, and it gives us a measure of our powers of resistance.
And then I told him the real climax of my life, which is the climax of this story, came to me last Thursday as I sat in the Senate Chamber. Then the spirit of my ancestor spoke as it never spoke before. Then I made my choice; then I realized Society was indeed the folly of the age. To this he replied with the question:
“Can you wonder the Chinese worship their ancestors? Perhaps we—”
“Perhaps we may drop Christianity for ancestor—”
“It is not necessary to drop Christianity. Christianity is not incompatible with ancestor-worship.”