e was compelled to forego his toil at an early
hour and retire to his cabin! There he was confronted by all the
problems and temptations of a soul battling with the animal nature and
striving to emancipate the spirit from its thraldom.

At the close of one cold, blustering day, when his evening meal had been
eaten in solitude, he sat down before the great fire which roared in the
chimney. He read awhile, but grew tired of his book and threw it down.
The melancholy which he had suppressed so long rose at last, and there
burst on him the apparent uselessness of the task he had gratuitously
assigned himself. Why had he ever done it? Why should he be sitting
there alone in his cabin when by his side there might be that radiant
woman whose presence would dispel instantly and forever the loneliness
which ceaselessly gnawed at his heart? What, after all, was to be gained
by this self-sacrifice? Life is very short, and there are few pleasures
to be had, at best. Why should he not seize them as fast as they came
within his reach? Had he not suffered enough already? Who had ever
suffered more? It was only an unnecessary cruelty that had even
suggested such agony as he was now experiencing. He was being cheated
out of legitimate pleasures, and that by the advice of an old ascetic
whose own capacity for enjoyment had been dried up, and who was envious
of the happiness of others! As these thoughts rushed through his soul,
he could not but perceive that he had been forced once more to enter the
arena and to fight over the old battle which he had lost in the
lumberman's cabin three years before! And he found to his dismay how
much harder it was to fight these foes of virtue when they come to us
not as vague imaginations of experiences which we have never tried, but
as vivid memories of real events. Then he had only dreamed of the sweet
fruits of the knowledge of good and evil: but now the taste was in his
mouth, to whet his appetite and increase his hunger. The slumbering
selfhood of his soul woke and clamored for its rights.

It was Chateaubriand who affirmed that the human heart is like one of
those southern pools which are quiet and beautiful on the surface, but
in the bottom of which there lies an alligator! However calm the surface
of the exile's soul appeared, there was a monster in its depth, and now
it rose upon him. In his struggles with it he paced the floor, sank
despairingly into his chair, and fell on his knees by turns.