Such
things come to him, give themselves to him. I do not know why he should
not in response fling his shabby gear aside and behave like a god; I
only know that he does not do so. His grunt of appreciation is absurd,
his speech goes like a crippled thing--and withal, and partly by virtue
of the knapsack and water-bottle, he is conqueror of the valley. The
valley is his for the taking.
There is a duality in life that I cannot express except by such images
as this, a duality so that we are at once absurd and full of sublimity,
and most absurd when we are most anxious to render the real splendours
that pervade us. This duplicity in life seems to me at times
ineradicable, at times like the confusing of something essentially
simple, like the duplication when one looks through a doubly refracting
medium. You think in this latter mood that you have only to turn the
crystal of Iceland spar about in order to have the whole thing plain.
But you never get it plain. I have been doing my halting utmost to get
down sincerely and simply my vision of life and duty. I have permitted
myself no defensive restraints; I have shamelessly written my starkest,
and it is plain to me that a smile that is not mine plays over my most
urgent passages.
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