Why should
I do what no one expected me to do? Why could I not be content to
fulfill the common standard approved by the average conception of
Christianity?
I can see now how foolish and how wrong these thoughts were. I saw it
even then at intervals. Again and again, like a torturing flash of
fire, there ran through me illumining agonized dissatisfactions with
myself, my work, my whole position. And again and again I let the
flame die down, knowing not that the Son of Man had walked amid the
fire. Nay more, I deliberately smothered the holy fire, being in part
fearful of it, and of what its consequence might be, if once it were
allowed to triumph. For I knew that if I followed these strange
impulses my whole life must be changed, and I did not want it changed.
I did not want to give up the ease of an assured position, the calm of
studious hours, the tasks which flattered my ability. I did not want
to face what I knew must happen, the estrangement of old friendships,
the rupture of accustomed forms of life. Besides, I might be wholly
wrong. I might have no real fitness for the tasks I contemplated;
saints, like poets, were born, not made. No one who knew me would have
believed me better fitted for any kind of life than that I lived. I
had no friend who did not think my present life adequate and
satisfactory, and many envied me for the good fortune that had given me
just the kind of sphere which seemed best suited to me.
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