He is a misfit. In him, as in all
of us, there is an infinite complexity--good and ill together. No one who
has faithfully examined his own life can doubt how trifling a weight turns
the scales for or against us. An accidental meeting, a casual friendship, a
phrase in a book--and the current of life takes a definite direction this
way or that. There are no doubt people in whom the elements are so
perfectly adjusted that the balance is never in doubt. Their character is
superior to circumstance. But they are rare. They are the stars that dwell
apart from our human struggles. Most of us know what it is to be on the
brink of the precipice--know, if we are quite honest with ourselves, how
narrow a shave we have had from joining the black sheep. Perhaps, if we are
still honest with ourselves, we shall admit that the thing that turned the
balance for us was not a very creditable thing--that we were protected from
ourselves not by any high virtue, but by something mean, a touch of
cowardice, a paltry ambition, a consideration that we should be ashamed to
confess.
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