A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



at my boy, only eight years old, the idiotic idea 

 occurred to me that perhaps he might help me 

 to lift myself by my own waistband. 



One morning in late May we found ourselves, 

 with our bridges burnt, standing with a yellow 

 dog in front of a weather-beaten hut one hundred 

 miles from Wall Street. It was so early that I 

 could feel the wet wire grass through my thin 

 shoes. I looked at the dilapidated house and 

 wondered at my temerity. Then the two fellows 

 who are always squabbling in one s subconscious- 

 ness began their debate. 



&quot;So,&quot; says one of them a kind of Mephisto 



&quot;you have made up your mind to live in that 

 hovel, have you ? Perhaps you think you were 

 built for it.&quot; 



&quot; No,&quot; says the other fellow, &quot; I m going to be 

 rebuilt for it.&quot; 



&quot;Well, it s a mediaeval funk blank cowardice 



crass sentimentalism. You cannot change your 

 skin by changing your geography. You will com 

 mit suicide before the year is out.&quot; 



&quot; All right,&quot; said the other, setting his teeth, 

 &quot;suicide it must be then. I ve got a little acro 

 batic feat to perform just to prove to a doctor that 

 somewhere in the past I had a Puritan ancestor 

 who died on the church steps with a gun in one 

 hand and a hymn-book in the other. I can live 

 on raw turnips and spring water when my mind 

 is made up.&quot; 



This was the bravado of the will, and even 

 while it was flourishing I was conscious that I 



12 



