and I kept putting off my visit to you till it was too late."
Fortunately my train was just starting, or I don't know what might
have happened. I said not a word; shook hands with him; got into the
carriage; he waved his hat to me, and I pretended not to see him, but
I did see him, and saw him turn round immediately to some well-
dressed officer-like gentleman with whom he walked laughing down the
platform. The rest of that day was black to me. I cared for
nothing. I passed away from the thought of Clem, and dwelt upon the
conviction which had long possessed me that I was INSIGNIFICANT, that
there was NOTHING MUCH IN ME, and it was this which destroyed my
peace. We may reconcile ourselves to poverty and suffering, but few
of us can endure the conviction that there is NOTHING IN US, and that
consequently we cannot expect anybody to gravitate towards us with
any forceful impulse. It is a bitter experience. And yet there is
consolation. The universe is infinite. In the presence of its
celestial magnitudes who is there who is really great or small, and
what is the difference between you and me, my work and yours? I
sought refuge in the idea of GOD, the God of a starry night with its
incomprehensible distances; and I was at peace, content to be the
meanest worm of all the millions that crawl on the earth.



CHAPTER IV--A NECESSARY DEVELOPMENT



The few friends who have read the first part of my autobiography may
perhaps remember that in my younger days I had engaged myself to a
girl named Ellen, from whom afterwards I parted. After some two or