his beliefs constituted. Here was an end, for which he had striven
through many years, failing at the very time when it should have
become most fruitful. And his disappointment must have been all the
more severe because he exaggerated the differences that existed
between us. It was his opinion that his negative opinions were
necessarily connected with those which were positive; and that it was
impossible truly to hold the one without the other. Yet, as I said,
his disappointment never took the form of a reproach. "It is your
right; nay, it is even your duty," he used continually to say, "to
work your own salvation. It has turned out to be different from mine.
Well, then, mine is the loss."

From an abstract point of view it may not seem to be so much of a
virtue that a father should consider his son's intellectual honesty to
be of more importance than his own opinions. But I am not writing from
an abstract point of view. We are all but children of the earth; not
good, but simply better than the bad. So it was with David G. Croly.
His opinions, crystallized by the opposition which they met on every
side, were so very much the truth to him that he wished his son to
perceive them clearly and cherish them as devoutly as he did. That
wish became impossible of fulfilment. Part of his life-work had
failed. "Mine is the loss."

H.D. CROLY.




From Mr. Croly to His Son Herbert at College