Mocking shafts of moonlight and starlight and frostlight seemed glancing off this one little soul in the freezing solitude of creation, wherein each is largely to himself alone.

What was it to the moon and all those shining swarms of stars, and that far star-dust in the Milky Way, whether he, Jerome Edwards, had shoes to close or not?
Whether he and his mother starved or not, they would shine just the same.

The triviality--even ludicrousness--of the sorrow of man, as compared with eternal things, was over the boy.

He was maddened at the sting and despite of his own littleness in the face of that greatness.
Suddenly a wild impulse of rebellion that was almost blasphemy seized him.

He clinched a puny fist at a great star.