The moment of his quarrel with his father and his college had, in fact, represented a moment of energy, of comparative success, which never recurred.

It Was as though this outburst of action and liberty had disappointed him, as if some deep-rooted instinct--cold, critical, reflective--had reasserted itself, condemning him and his censors equally.

The uselessness of utterance, the futility of enthusiasm, the inaccessibility of the ideal, the practical absurdity of trying to realize any of the mind's inward dreams: these were the kind of considerations which descended upon him, slowly and fatally, crushing down the newly springing growths of action or of passion.

It was as though life had demonstrated to him the essential truth of a childish saying of his own which had startled and displeased his Calvinist mother years before.

"Mother," the delicate, large-eyed child had said to her one day in a fit of physical weariness, "how is it I dislike the things I dislike so much more than I like the things I like ?" So he wrote no more, he quarreled no more, he meddled with the great passionate things of life and expression no more.