off the track--the touch of grace is mostly sudden--and facing about in a
new direction may even attain the illusion of having turned his back on
Death itself.

Some converts have, indeed, earned immortality by their exquisite
indiscretion. The most illustrious example of a convert, that Flower of
chivalry, Don Quixote de la Mancha, remains for all the world the only
genuine immortal hidalgo. The delectable Knight of Spain became
converted, as you know, from the ways of a small country squire to an
imperative faith in a tender and sublime mission. Forthwith he was
beaten with sticks and in due course shut up in a wooden cage by the
Barber and the Priest, the fit ministers of a justly shocked social
order. I do not know if it has occurred to anybody yet to shut up Mr.
Luffmann in a wooden cage. {4} I do not raise the point because I wish
him any harm. Quite the contrary. I am a humane person. Let him take
it as the highest praise--but I must say that he richly deserves that
sort of attention.

On the other hand I would not have him unduly puffed up with the pride of
the exalted association. The grave wisdom, the admirable amenity, the
serene grace of the secular patron-saint of all mortals converted to
noble visions are not his. Mr. Luffmann has no mission. He is no Knight
sublimely Errant. But he is an excellent Vagabond. He is full of merit.
That peripatetic guide, philosopher and friend of all nations, Mr.
Roosevelt, would promptly excommunicate him with a big stick. The truth
is that the ex-autocrat of all the States does not like rebels against
the sullen order of our universe. Make the best of it or perish--he
cries. A sane lineal successor of the Barber and the Priest, and a
sagacious political heir of the incomparable Sancho Panza (another great
Governor), that distinguished litterateur has no mercy for dreamers. And