The hot furnace-fire did not harden
this finely-tempered soul. But still he walked in darkness, doubting,
doubting, doubting all he most wished to believe. It was the infirmity
of his constitution, and the result of his surroundings. He went into
large business enterprises with mingled success and disappointment. He
went into politics, and though he bore himself nobly and gallantly, it
need not be said that that vortex does not usually draw those who are
within its whirl heavenward. He won some of the prizes that were fought
for in that arena where the noblest are in danger of being soiled, and
where the baser metal sinks surely to the bottom by the inevitable force
of moral gravitation.
From time to time we were thrown together, and I was glad to know that
the Great Question was still in his thought, and the hunger for truth
was still in his heart. Ill health sometimes made him irritable and
morbid, but the drift of his inner nature was unchanged. His mind was
enveloped in mists, and sometimes tempests of despair raged within him;
but his heart still thirsted for the water of life.
A painful and almost fatal railway accident befell him. He was taken to
his ranch among the quiet hills of Shasta County.
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