Unleavened Bread by Robert Grant
page 121 of 402 (30%)
page 121 of 402 (30%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
As has been mentioned, Littleton was a Unitarian, and one effect of his faith had been to make his point of view broad and straightforward. He detested hypocrisy and cant, subterfuge and self-delusion. He was content to let other people live according to their own lights without too much distress on their account, but he was too honest and too clear-headed to be able to deceive himself as to his own motives and his own conduct. He had no intention to be morbid, but he saw clearly that it was his privilege and his duty to be true to both his loves, his wife and his profession, and that if he neglected either, he would be so far false to his best needs and aspirations. Yet he felt that for the moment it was incumbent on him to err on the side of devotion to his wife until she should become accustomed to her new surroundings. The problem of the proper arrangement and subdivision of life in a large city and in these seething, modern times is perplexing to all of us. There are so many things we would like to do which we cannot; so many things which we do against our wills. We are perpetually squinting at happiness, but just as we get a delightful vision before our eyes we are whisked off by duty or ambition or the force of social momentum to try a different view. Consequently our perennial regret is apt to be that we have seen our real interests and our real friends as in a panorama, for a fleeting moment, and then no more until the next time. For Littleton this was less true than for most. His life was deep and stable rather than many-sided. To be sure his brain experienced, now and then, the dazing effects of trying to confront all the problems of the universe and adapt his architectural endeavors to his interpretation of them; and he knew well the bewildering difficulties of the process of adjusting professional theories to the sterile conditions which workaday practice often presented. But this crowding of his mental canvas was all in the |
|