Possibly he had drawn her map to
bigger scale, increased her faith, given her more sense of repose and
peace, more courage therefore. She thought formerly of a day, but not
of its relation to all days before and behind. She stuck her husband's
'reviews' in the big book, afflicted by the poor financial results
they represented, but was unable to think of his work as a stage in a
long series of development and progress, no effort lost, no single
hope mislaid. And that was something--_if_ he had accomplished it.
Only, he feared he had not. There was the trouble. There lay the
secret of a certain ineffectiveness in his character. For he did not
realise that fear is simply suppressed desire, vivid signs of life,
and that desire is the ultimate causative agent everywhere and always.
'Behind Will stands Desire,' and Desire is Action.
And if he _had_ accomplished this, how was it done? Not by preaching,
certainly. Was it, then, simply by being, thinking, feeling it? A
glorious thought, if true! For assuredly he had this faculty of seeing
life whole, and even in boyhood he had looked ahead over its entire
map. He had, indeed, this way of relating all its people, and all its
parts together, instead of seeing them separate, unintelligible
because the context was left out. He lived intensely in the present,
yet looked backwards and forwards too at the same time.
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