The days that are added to our experience each bring this story in a different way: that the sense of self impedes reality on every hand; that the loss of the sense of self in labour and service renders us instantly quick to the animations of the spirit, without which at least from time to time, a man belongs to the herd, and is lost, like all gregarious creatures, in the will of his superiors.
21
THE MAN WHO FOUND PEACE
There is a man here who has found peace. I made a pilgrimage to his house. A boy from the village went with me part of the way up the mountain. The Pacific was presently visible upon the right hand, and a spacious verdant valley on the left. I lingered a moment on the trail, rejoicing in the quiet splendour, and then noticed a vine-clad hut still farther up the slope.
"That's Mr. Dreve's cabin," the boy said.
I learned from him that this man Dreve was well-loved in the village and in the big city beyond; that he was a very different man now from the one who had come here a few years ago; that he was torn and maddened then, cursing God, but too stubborn to kill himself.
"What helped him?" said I, because the boy had paused.
"Well, it wasn't the climate," he answered.