wayward of belief and unbelief. The sweet ease with which he overturned
and emptied out some of my arguments gave me worse failure of the
diaphragm than a high swing ever did. Nevertheless I responded; and he
rejoined; and I rejoined again, and presently he gave me the notion that
he was suffering some cruel moral strain.



VIII


ANOTHER CURTAINED WAGON

Upon whatever fundamental scheme we perseveringly concentrate our
powers, upon whatever main road of occupation we take life's
journey,--art, politics, commerce, science,--if only we will take its
upper fork as often as the road divides, then will that road itself, and
not necessarily any cross-road, lead us to the noblest, truest plane of
convictions, affections, aspirations. Such a frame of mind may be quite
without religiosity, as unconscious as health; but the proof of its
religious reality will be that, as if it were a lighthouse light and we
its keeper, everybody else, or at any rate everybody _out on the deep_,
will see it plainer than we. Such is the gist of what this young man was
saying to me, when our speculations were brought to an end by our
overtaking a man well mounted, and a woman whose rough-gaited was
followed by a colt.

The pair took our pace, the man plying me with questions, and his wife,
in front, telling Lieutenant Durand all the rumors of the day. Her scant
hair was of a scorched red tone, she was freckled down into her collar,