where there are loves and hates and hopes and despairs as deep as are
ever felt in the mass where the creed-teachers and Mrs. Grundy and the
legislatures are greater factors.

And of this more reckless, hopeless people Harlson learned much. With
them he was; of them he could never fully be. The extent to which a
man is permanently defiled by pitch-touching cannot, of course, be
known. It depends upon the pitch and upon the man. It was not a quiet
life the young man led! On the contrary, it was a very feverish one,
for he labored hard in the office by day--he never for an instant
abandoned his ambitions and his plans--and at night he drifted into the
land where were warmth and light and lawlessness. He had his duty
there, such as it might be, for he was both a gambler and a protector,
and, young as he was, callow as he was, within a year he had become one
in demand, no trifler at the table, and an object of rivalry among
those whose regard means fee of body and of soul. He, himself, at that
time, did not appreciate the remarkable nature of his changing. So
rapidly he aged in knowledge of all undercurrents that he passed into
full maturity without a comprehension of the change. It is said that
some Indians teach their children to swim, not by repeated gentle
lessons, but by throwing them into a deep stream recklessly, saving
them only at the last moment. So had some power hurled Grant Harlson
into the black waters, and he had not drowned, and had taken rank among
strong swimmers.

It is, as I have said, difficult to write intelligently of this portion
of this man's life. I want to do him justice, for I have always cared
for him; yet, from the conventional point of view, at least, nothing
can excuse his lapse at this one time. He should have continued
starving, I suppose, as have so many others, and have either died or