had muddled away the only life he was quite certain of enjoying, in
contemplation of a dream; and who had, moreover, despoiled the lives of
others, too, for the dream’s sake. To him the dream alone could
matter—his proud assurance that life was not a blind and aimless
business, not all a hopeless waste and confusion; and that he, this
gross weak animal, could be strong and excellent and wise, and his
existence a pageant of beauty and nobility. To prove this dream was
based on a delusion would be no doubt an enjoyable retaliation, for
Kennaston’s being so unengaging to the eye and so stupid to talk to; but
it would make the dream no whit less lovely or less dear to him—or to
the rest of us, either.
For it occurred to me that his history was, in essentials, the history
of our race, thus far. All I advanced for or against him, equally, was
true of all men that have ever lived.... For it is in this inadequate
flesh that each of us must serve his dream; and so, must fail in the
dream’s service, and must parody that which he holds dearest. To this we
seem condemned, being what we are. Thus, one and all, we play false to
the dream, and it evades us, and we dwindle into responsible citizens.
And yet always thereafter—because of many abiding memories—we know,
assuredly, that the way of flesh is not a futile scurrying through
dining-rooms and offices and shops and parlors, and thronged streets and
restaurants, “and so to bed.” ...
It was in appropriate silence, therefore, that I regarded Felix
Kennaston, as a parable. The man was not merely very human; he was
humanity. And I reflected that it is only by preserving faith in human
dreams that we may, after all, perhaps some day make them come true.
THE END
VAIL-BALLOU CO., BINGHAMTON AND NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Transcriber’s Notes:
○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that:
was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_);
was in bold by is enclosed by “equal” signs (=bold=)
had extra character spacing by “plus” signs (+stretched+).