"Isn't it true?"
"It may be--but I don't see what there is to create any obligation."
"Well, you're discharging it every day. You create things primarily
for yourself, but actually what you do is to create opportunities for
others less endowed with imaginative power. And whatever may be the
ultimate scope or result of your work at St. Marys, that is the highest
service it will ever perform. And, by the way, my friends seemed a
little afraid of you at supper, though I assured them you were
perfectly harmless. Do you mind telling me if you got any impressions?"
"About the events of the day?"
"Partly. I'm wondering just what people like these suggest to a man of
your sort. Is it all very drab and uneventful?"
"Well," said Clark thoughtfully, "it is something like that, isn't it?"
"I thought so once, but that's just what I don't now admit, and urge
that this is a case where we should consider comparative values.
Satisfaction is not, after all, so much a matter of the size or quality
of the thing that satisfies, as it is of the individual who is affected
and his circumstances. Small joys go a long way on Manitoulin Island."
"But are people who live like this not conscious of any deprivation?"
"It's not so much that as it is wonder what it would be like to own
certain things or comforts. You don't find much envy in the bush
country, but you do find a lot of self-respect. I could tell you
things about some Indian friends of mine that would clear your mind, if
you happen to think that the only good Indian is a dead one. It seems
to me that life in the open, even though a great part of it is spent in
exposure and hardship, has certain spiritual compensations."