ore the messenger was out of sight I had
repented....

"I failed him. I have gone about in the world dreaming of tremendous
things and failing most people. My wife too...."

He stopped talking for a little time and folded his arms tight and
stared hard in front of himself, his lips compressed.

"You see, White," he said, with a kind of setting of the teeth, "this
is the sort of thing one has to stand. Life is imperfect. Nothing can be
done perfectly. And on the whole--" He spoke still more slowly, "I would
go through again with the very same things that have hurt my people. If
I had to live over again. I would try to do the things without hurting
the people, but I would do the things anyhow. Because I'm raw with
remorse, it does not follow that on the whole I am not doing right.
Right doing isn't balm. If I could have contrived not to hurt these
people as I have done, it would have been better, just as it would be
better to win a battle without any killed or wounded. I was clumsy with
them and they suffered, I suffer for their suffering, but still I have
to stick to the way I have taken. One's blunders are accidents. If
one thing is clearer than another it is that the world isn't
accident-proof....

"But I wish I had sent those dollars to Prothero.... God! White, but
I lie awake at night thinking of that messenger as he turned away....
Trying to stop him....

"I didn't send those dollars. So fifty or sixty people were killed
and many wounded.... There for all practical purposes the thing ends.
Perhaps it will serve to give me a little charity for some other fool's
haste and blundering....

"I couldn't help it, White. I couldn't help it....

"The main thing, the impersonal thing, goes on. One thinks, one learns,
one adds one's contribution of experience and understanding. The spirit
of the race goes on to light and comprehension. In spite of accidents.
In spite of individual blundering.

"It would be absurd anyhow to suppose that nobility is so easy as to
come slick and true on every occasion....

"If one gives oneself to any long aim one must reckon with minor
disasters. This Research I undertook grows and grows. I believe in it
more and more. The more it asks from me the more I give to it. When I
was a youngster I thought the thing I wanted was just round the corner.
I fancied I would find out the noble life in a year or two, just what
it was, just where it took one, and for the rest of my life I would live