He was arriving like a ghost, and the sound of his
own footsteps was almost an encumbrance to be got rid of.
The picture of life had changed for him. Before this time he had
known it but speculatively; now he thought he knew it as a practical
man; though perhaps he did not, even yet. Nevertheless humanity
stood before him no longer in the pensive sweetness of Italian art,
but in the staring and ghastly attitudes of a Wiertz Museum, and with
the leer of a study by Van Beers.
His conduct during these first weeks had been desultory beyond
description. After mechanically attempting to pursue his
agricultural plans as though nothing unusual had happened, in
the manner recommended by the great and wise men of all ages, he
concluded that very few of those great and wise men had ever gone so
far outside themselves as to test the feasibility of their counsel.
"This is the chief thing: be not perturbed," said the Pagan moralist.
That was just Clare's own opinion. But he was perturbed. "Let not
your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid," said the Nazarene.
Clare chimed in cordially; but his heart was troubled all the same.
How he would have liked to confront those two great thinkers, and
earnestly appeal to them as fellow-man to fellow-men, and ask them
to tell him their method!
His mood transmuted itself into a dogged indifference till at length
he fancied he was looking on his own existence with the passive
interest of an outsider.
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