"If I had not loved you," the letter continued, "I would have left
you an income, and you would have blessed me, instead of cursing me,
as you should have done, for spoiling your life."
This world was a school, so he viewed it, for the making of men; and
the one thing essential to a man was strength. One gathered the
impression of a deeply religious man. In these days he would, no
doubt, have been claimed as a theosophist; but his beliefs he had
made for, and adapted to, himself--to his vehement, conquering
temperament. God needed men to serve Him--to help Him. So, through
many changes, through many ages, God gave men life: that by contest
and by struggle they might ever increase in strength; to those who
proved themselves most fit the sterner task, the humbler beginnings,
the greater obstacles. And the crown of well-doing was ever
victory. He appeared to have convinced himself that he was one of
the chosen, that he was destined for great ends. He had been a
slave in the time of the Pharaohs; a priest in Babylon; had clung to
the swaying ladders in the sack of Rome; had won his way into the
councils when Europe was a battlefield of contending tribes; had
climbed to power in the days of the Borgias.
To most of us, I suppose, there come at odd moments haunting
thoughts of strangely familiar, far-off things; and one wonders
whether they are memories or dreams.
Pages:
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186