We've
got to decide these things for ourselves. But I tell you one thing,
Forster, I've found the way. I've found out the biggest hazard in the
world--a game of chance that never is concluded, a venture that may end
in the highest heaven or the blackest pit. It will keep a man on edge
until the clods fall on his coffin, because he will never know--not
until his last day, and not then will he know. It is a voyage without
a rudder or compass, and you must be captain and crew and keep watch,
every day and night, yourself, with no one to relieve you. I have found
the VENTURE. Don't bother yourself about leaving Mary Marsden, Forster.
I married her yesterday at noon."
XXII
THE DUEL
The gods, lying beside their nectar on 'Lympus and peeping over the edge
of the cliff, perceive a difference in cities. Although it would seem
that to their vision towns must appear as large or small ant-hills
without special characteristics, yet it is not so. Studying the habits
of ants from so great a height should be but a mild diversion when
coupled with the soft drink that mythology tells us is their only
solace. But doubtless they have amused themselves by the comparison of
villages and towns; and it will be no news to them (nor, perhaps, to
many mortals), that in one particularity New York stands unique among
the cities of the world.
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