Horrified that he could not rest in the way that he had chosen, distracted at these intangible desires, he doubted at times his perfect sanity; for though it seemed there was within him the impulse to teach and to create, he could not say to himself what or how was to be the form, whether mental or material, of the thing created, the thing typified, the thing which he would teach.
Of such travail, of such mould, have come great architects, great engineers, great writers, musicians, painters, indeed great men of affairs, beings who stand by the head and shoulders above other men as leaders.

The nature of such men is not always at the first assured, the imprimitive seal not always surely set on, so that of one thus tormented of his inner self it may be mere accident which shall determine whether it is to be great artist or great artisan that is to be born again.
To Franklin, dreaming as he woke or slept, there sometimes waved a hand, there sometimes sounded a Voice, as that which of old summoned the prophet in the watches of the night.

Neither in his waking nor his sleeping hours could he call this spirit into materialization, however much he longed to wrestle with it finally.

It remained only to haunt him vaguely, to join with the shade of Mary Ellen the Cruel to set misery on a life which he had thought happily assured..