Though Alexander often told himself he
had never put more into his work than he had
done in the last few years, he had to admit
that he had never got so little out of it.
He was paying for success, too, in the demands
made on his time by boards of civic enterprise
and committees of public welfare. The obligations
imposed by his wife's fortune and position
were sometimes distracting to a man who
followed his profession, and he was
expected to be interested in a great many
worthy endeavors on her account as well as
on his own. His existence was becoming a
network of great and little details. He had
expected that success would bring him
freedom and power; but it had brought only
power that was in itself another kind of
restraint. He had always meant to keep his
personal liberty at all costs, as old MacKeller,
his first chief, had done, and not, like so
many American engineers, to become a part
of a professional movement, a cautious board
member, a Nestor de pontibus. He happened
to be engaged in work of public utility, but
he was not willing to become what is called a
public man. He found himself living exactly
the kind of life he had determined to escape.
What, he asked himself, did he want with
these genial honors and substantial comforts?
Hardships and difficulties he had carried
lightly; overwork had not exhausted him; but this
dead calm of middle life which confronted him,--
of that he was afraid.
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