"that they have lived through hell. If by that they mean they've
lived through the deepest torments the human heart can know, then I
can say that I, too, have lived through hell. What I suffered after
I went home that night no one in this world will ever know. Words
couldn't tell it; it's not the kind of thing words can come anywhere
near. My whole life spread itself out before me; it was not a
pleasant thing to look at. But at last, boys, out of the depths of
my darkness, I began to get a little light. I began to get some
understanding of the battle which it falls to the lot of some of us
human beings to wage. There was good in me, you see, or I wouldn't
have cared like that, and it came to me then, all alone that
terrible night, that it is the good which lies buried away somewhere
in our hearts must fight out the bad. And so--all alone, boys--I
began the battle of trying to get command of my own life. And do you
know--this is the truth--it was with the beginning of that battle I
got my first taste of happiness. There is no finer feeling in this
world than the sense of coming into mastery of one's self. It is
like opening a door that has shut you in. Oh, you don't do it all in
a minute. This is no miracle I'm talking about. It's a fight. But
it's a fight that can be won. It's a fight that's gloriously worth
the winning. I'm not saying to you, 'Be good and you'll succeed.'
Maybe you won't succeed. Life as we've arranged it for ourselves
makes success a pretty tough proposition. But that doesn't alter the
fact that it pays to be a decent sort. You and I know about how much
happiness there is in the other kind of thing. And there is
happiness in feeling you're doing what you can to develop what's in
you. Success or failure, it brings a sense of having done your
part,--that bully sense of having put up the best fight you could."

He leaned upon the table then, as though very weary. "I don't know,