ernal, self-existent worm! So superbly constituted, so simply
complicate is man; he rises from and stands upon such a pedestal of
lower physical organisms and spiritual structures, that no atmosphere
will comfort or nourish his life, less divine than that offered by other
souls; nowhere but in other lives can he breathe. Only by the reflex of
other lives can he ripen his specialty, develop the idea of himself,
the individuality that distinguishes him from every other. Were all men
alike, each would still have an individuality, secured by his personal
consciousness, but there would be small reason why there should be more
than two or three such; while, for the development of the differences
which make a large and lofty unity possible, and which alone can
make millions into a church, an endless and measureless influence and
reaction are indispensable. A man to be perfect--complete, that is,
in having reached the spiritual condition of persistent and universal
growth, which is the mode wherein he inherits the infinitude of his
Father--must have the education of a world of fellow-men. Save for the
hope of the dawn of life in the form beside me, I should have fled for
fellowship to the beasts that grazed and did not speak. Better to go
about with them--infinitely better--than to live alone! But with the
faintest prospect of a woman to my friend, I, poorest of creatures, was
yet a possible man!

CHAPTER XIX. THE WHITE LEECH

I woke one morning from a profound sleep, with one of my hands very
painful. The back of it was much swollen, and in the centre of the
swelling was a triangular wound, like the bite of a leech. As the day
went on, the swelling subsided, and by the evening the hurt was all but
healed. I searched the cave, turning over every stone of any size, but
discovered nothing I could imagine capable of injuring me.

Slowly the days passed, and still the body never moved, never opened
its eyes. It could not be dead, for assuredly it manifested no sign of
decay, and the air about it was quite pure. Moreover, I could imagine
that the sharpest angles of the bones had begun to disappear, that
the form was everywhere a little rounder, and the skin had less of the
parchment-look: if such change was indeed there, life must be there! the
tide which had ebbed so far toward the infinite, must have begun again
to flow! Oh joy to me, if the rising ripples of life's ocean were indeed
burying under lovely shape the bones it