“The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not indeed For that which is most worthy to be blest-- Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of childhood whether busy or at rest, * * * * * But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts, before which our mortal nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet the master-light of all our seeing; Uphold us--cherish--and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal silence: truths that wake, To perish never: Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, Nor man, nor boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy!” From here on, Lester always felt a great tide lift him high.... “Hence, in a season of calm weather, Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither, Can in a moment travel thither And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.” It was to the shouts of those children, to the reverberation of those mighty waters that the paralyzed accountant often slipped quietly from his narrow, drudging life into the “being of eternal silence.” Chapter 16 One of the most embittering elements of Lester’s old life had been the absence of any leisure when he could really think--consider things consecutively enough to make any sort of sense out of them. He seemed to himself to live perpetually in the mental attitude of a man with his watch in one hand and a heavy valise in the other running for a train which was already overdue. How much value would the judgment of such a man have?