Chapter II. 



HIS BEGINNINGS. 



Most biographers like to tell of their hero's 

 school-boy days and of the parental and other 

 influences that shaped his inborn spirit into the 

 character that had to be portrayed. This I cannot 

 do to any extent in the case of Brown, whose 

 Journal is somewhat secretive regarding his early 

 years. Not that it matters very much, for he 

 flatters himself who thinks that he can correctly 

 read a cup of human destiny, that has been drunk, 

 from the random pattern its early flotsam and 

 jetsam leaves. Who, for instance, can really 

 explain why flowers may bloom on stony ground, 

 whose seeds would rot in better soil, why genius 

 likewise can flourish in adversity, but often 

 perishes in the midst of plenty ? What is to be 

 gained, therefore, by probing into the privacy of 

 human lives, unless perhaps the natural consola- 

 tion that is got from sometimes finding that the 

 divine spirit can share a temple with flesh of baser 

 fibre and thrive upon it ? All these questions are 

 too inscrutable for human minds to answer. 



11 



