"
* * * * *
"Barton has made the acquaintance of poor Sartliff," said Ida, willing
to introduce a new subject, "and was much struck by him."
"Do you think he is actually shattered?" asked Miss Giddings.
"I really have no opinion. His mind moves in such unaccustomed
channels: we find it in such unusual haunts, that nobody can tell
whether it remains healthy or not. It works logically enough, granting
his premises. Of course he is under delusions--we should call them
mistakes merely, if they occurred in ordinary speculations; but with
him, in his abnormal pursuits, they are to be expressed under the
vapory forms of delusions."
"Oh, it is the saddest sight to see this young man, with a nature so
richly endowed, asking only for light, and the right way; to see
him turning so blindly from the true given light, and searching with
simple earnestness along sterile, rocky byways and thorny hedges, to
find the path or opening that conducts back to a true starting place.
He opens his bosom to sun and air, and bares his feet to the earth,
thinking that inspiration will, through some avenue, reach his senses,
and so inform him. It is the most pitiful spectacle that the eye can
see," said Ida, pathetically.
"Like a kind spirit sent from heaven to earth," said Bart, "who,
having forgotten his message, can never find his way back; but is
doomed to wander up and down the uncongenial region, searching in vain
for the star-beam by which he descended.
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