How impossible, he reflected, it would have been for him to do
this, if he had remained surrounded by people like his father and
mother, or Pryer and Pryer's friends, and his rector. He had been
observing, reflecting, and assimilating all these months with no
more consciousness of mental growth than a schoolboy has of growth
of body, but should he have been able to admit his growth to
himself, and to act up to his increased strength if he had remained in
constant close connection with people who assured him solemnly that he
was under a hallucination? The combination against him was greater
than his unaided strength could have broken through, and he felt
doubtful how far any shock less severe than the one from which he
was suffering would have sufficed to free him.
CHAPTER LXV
AS he lay on his bed day after day slowly recovering, he woke up
to the fact which most men arrive at sooner or later, I mean that very
few care two straws about truth, or have any confidence that it is
righter and better to believe what is true than what is untrue, even
though belief in the untruth may seem at first sight most expedient.
Yet it is only these few who can be said to believe anything at all;
the rest are simply unbelievers in disguise.
Pages:
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480