es it make? I have enough to live on. Why not let it go
at that?"

CHAPTER LXI

The days of man under the old dispensation, or, rather, according
to that supposedly biblical formula, which persists, are threescore
years and ten. It is so ingrained in the race-consciousness by
mouth-to-mouth utterance that it seems the profoundest of truths. As a
matter of fact, man, even under his mortal illusion, is organically
built to live five times the period of his maturity, and would do so
if he but knew that it is spirit which endures, that age is an
illusion, and that there is no death. Yet the race-thought, gained
from what dream of materialism we know not, persists, and the death of
man under the mathematical formula so fearfully accepted is daily
registered.

Lester was one of those who believed in this formula. He was
nearing sixty. He thought he had, say, twenty years more at the utmost
to live--perhaps not so long. Well, he had lived comfortably. He
felt that he could not complain. If death was coming, let it come. He
was ready at any time. No complaint or resistance would issue from
him. Life, in most of its aspects, was a silly show anyhow.

He admitted that it was mostly illusion--easily proved to be
so. That it might all be one he sometimes suspected. It was very much
like a dream in its composition truly--sometimes like a very bad
dream. All he had to sustain him in his acceptance of its reality from
hour to hour and day to day was apparent contact with this material
proposition and that--people, meetings of boards of directors,
individuals and organizations planning to do this and that, his wife's
social functions Letty loved him as a fine, grizzled example of a
philosopher. She admired, as Jennie had, his solid, determined,
phlegmatic attitude in the face of troubled circumstance. All the
winds of fortune or misfortune could not apparently excite or disturb
Lester. He refused to be frightened. He refused to budge from his
beliefs and feelings, and usually had to be pushed away from them,
still believing, if he were gotten away at all. He refused to do
anything save as he always said, "Look the facts in the face" and
fight. He could be made to fight easily enough if imposed upon, but
only in a stubborn, resisting way. His plan was to resist every effort
to coerce him to the last ditch. If he had to let go in the end he
would when compelled, but his views as to the value of not letting go
were quite the