Had death been a less eminent
affair, or less imminent, the sarcasm of his position might have seemed
gross to the point of insult. But, the longer he envisaged it, the more
did the enduring enigma and its accompanying uncertainty allure. Not as
victim, but rather as conqueror of the final terror, did he begin to
regard himself.
Meanwhile, though reason continued to hold the balance even between
things positively known and things imagined only and hoped for, the
god-ward impulse strengthened in him. Not by conscious or convincing
argument from within, but by all-powerful compulsion from without, was
his thought borne onward and upward to increasing confidence. So that he
asked himself--as so many another, still unwearied, still enamoured of
attainment, has asked in like case--whether impending divorce of soul and
body may not confer freedom of a wider range and nobler quality, powers
more varied and august than the mind, circumscribed by conditions of time
and sense, has yet conception of?
To him such development seemed possible--certainly.
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