THE LIGHT IN A DARK CELL 



are spent looking at the procession. They would 

 be of about as much use to themselves in a dark 

 room as would a mirror. They are decrepit in 

 fants, who must be fed continually by the spoon 

 of circumstance. Whenever things lose their 

 motion, they, too, lose theirs, as if they were mere 

 cogs in the social machinery. Their experience is 

 about as interesting as a book of old playbills. 

 That was what Goethe meant when he said that 

 the ordinary man is content to see something 

 going on. He is content because he does not 

 have to go on himself. 



Probably conscience has a great deal to do with 

 a man s disinclination to be left alone with him 

 self. When one has nobody to look at but him 

 self, he is apt to be not only bored but frightened. 

 One s mistakes and follies always look more for 

 midable when one is alone. Conscience is like a 

 photographer it shuts off the general glare, gets 

 the light focussed and subdued, and out comes the 

 expression that belongs to you. I confess that at 

 first I acted like the ordinary man (that I am). I 

 hankered, pined, growled, complained, and looked 

 over my shoulder at the disturbance that I missed. 

 I was dreadfully bored because nothing was going 

 on. And mind you, the immeasureable proces 

 sion of the universe was jogging right along as 

 before. Not a cog had been slipped in the tre 

 mendous plan, but I felt that it had because I was 

 no longer on exhibition. There is a Chinese 

 adage which says that our hopes are our friends, 

 but our desires are our children ; and there was I, 



105 



