A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



&quot; By destroying your own. That s the devil s 

 logic.&quot; 



This treatment resulted somewhat as a counter- 

 irritant will. The Doctor had cuffed me profes 

 sionally. When he went away I began to resent 

 it. Besides, the farther I receded from the original 

 point of shock, the less dangerous it appeared to 

 be, and the events that had been momentarily 

 suspended began to press up again. Telegrams, 

 special messengers, urgent calls, came out of the 

 world to which I belonged. It is not easy to step 

 outside of a crisis when you are a part of it. A 

 man does not suddenly resolve to become medita 

 tive in a mob. I had sufficient resolution to back 

 out of a dinner party and send word to the office 

 that I would not be down for a day or two. I 

 was already compromising. I would slack up for 

 a few days, and then go at it again more guardedly. 

 This in effect was to use Wendell Phillips s 

 phrase a weak determination not to commit 

 suicide, but to jump only half way down Niagara. 



To be absolutely candid, neither physical warn 

 ing nor medical advice would have broken the 

 nexus of my life at that time, but the Doctor had 

 dropped one bit of acid into his advice that was to 

 eat away the chain that I could not break. That 

 word &quot;orphanage&quot; laid hold of some part of my 

 system with a rankling persistency. It was as if 

 the Doctor had left his scalpel sticking in my soul. 

 &quot; Where is that boy ? &quot; kept tolling in me like a 

 deep, questioning bell. 



The next morning I was again flying up town 



