ing for revelations.

Sometimes I lived for days in a chimera of doubts, feeling that it was
hardly worth while living at all if I was never to know why I was born
and why I could not live forever. It was in one of these prolonged
moods that I heard that a friend of mine, a distinguished man of
letters whom I greatly admired, was coming to Boston for a short
visit. A terrific New England blizzard arrived some hours in advance
of my friend's train, but so intent was I on questioning him that I
disregarded the weather, and struggled through towering snowdrifts, in
the teeth of the wild wind, to the railroad station. There I nearly
perished of weariness while waiting for the train, which was delayed
by the storm. But when my friend emerged from one of the snow-crusted
cars I was rewarded; for the blizzard had kept the reporters away, and
the great man could give me his undivided attention.

No doubt he understood the pressing importance of the matter to me,
from the trouble I had taken to secure an early interview with him. He
heard me out very soberly, and answered my questions as honestly as a
thinking man could. Not a word of what he said remains in my mind, but
I remember going away with the impression that it was possible to live
without knowing everything, after all, and that I might even try to be
happy in a world full of riddles.

In such ways as this I sought peace of mind, but I never achieved more
than a brief truce. I was coming to believe that only the stupid could
be happy, and that life was pretty hard on the philosophical, when
the great new interest of science came into my life, and scattered my
blue devils as the sun scatters the night damps.

Some of my friends in the Natural History Club were deeply versed in
the principles of evolutionary science, and were able to guide me in
my impetuous rush to learn everything in a day. I was in a hurry to
deduce, from the conglomeration of isolated facts that I picked up in
the lectures, the final solution of all my problems. It took both
patience and wisdom to check me and at the same time satisfy me, I
have no doubt; but then I was always fortunate in my friends. Wisdom
and patience in plenty were spent on me, and I was instructed and
inspired and comforted. Of course my wisest teacher was not able to
tell me how the original spark of life was kindled, nor to point out,
on the starry map of heaven, my future abode. The bread of absolute
knowledge I do not hop