down and read for many hours, somewhat heartened by his mind's
endurance, and by the sudden turn from hopelessness he perceived in
Joyce's work. 'Exiles.' It filled all his mind with true thought and
carried him for a time from himself, and he loved in those moments both
the medium and the man, so beyond his understanding.

Moved as it were to make some account of himself he rose, wrapped the
robe about him, went to the desk-table and, without looking at the
verses he had scrawled the day before, wrote a simple, passionate poem
to his wife.

But the feelings went too deep and he could not yet read back what he
had written.

He called and a nurse brought him a soft and frugal meal, and before
she left he looked into her face and said sincerely, "Thank you," for
she had reminded him that other lives existed outside his own.

After he ate for a time he was unwell, and lay down in the bed and
waited for the aching nausea to pass. Weariness and exhaustion came
over him when the other left, and having little choice, yet also
wanting to trust, he surrendered. And after a further time he slept.

He did not wake until late in the evening. Without looking or even
thinking about the clock he went to his writing desk and flipped over
the written pages of the pad. A thought had come to him, whether in
dream or rising from it he could not recall, nor did it matter. He had
his answer. He wrote on a blank sheet of paper with a quiet warm peace
inside him:

If you believe in too much, or nothing at all, either way you will be
hurt.

With this he became calm and thoughtful. What was the use of despair,
or endless worry? Running around wildly, trying by one's own efforts
to turn back an imagined tide of evil and malicious fate, or believing,
at the most, that life was nothing but a primal struggle without order
or lasting hope. If there truly was nothing beyond man and the grave,
then what was the use of trying at all? when the bravest and most
determined lives must eventually end in ruin and death? In this sense
even the existentialists were wiser than the proponents of human will
and self-made destiny.

And on the other side of the coin, were those who put their faith and
trust in Gods and religions they did not understand, accepting without
trial or common sense the narrow dogmas of fearful (or even wise) old
men. MEN. What made their observations and conclusions more
enlightened than his own, or those of anyon