I unharnessed the mare, and watered and fed her; I climbed up into the
loft and put down a rackful of hay; I let the cows out into the pasture
and set up the bars. And then I stood by the gate and looked up into the
clear June sky. No man, I think, can remain long silent under the stars,
with the brooding, mysterious night around about him, without feeling,
poignantly, how little he understands anything, how inconsequential his
actions are, how feeble his judgments.
And I thought as I stood there how many a man, deep down in his heart,
knows to a certainty that he has escaped being an outcast, not because
of any real moral strength or resolution of his own, but because Society
has bolstered him up, hedged him about with customs and restrictions
until he never has had a really good opportunity to transgress. And some
do not sin for very lack of courage and originality: they are helplessly
good. How many men in their vanity take to themselves credit for the
built-up virtues of men who are dead! There is no cause for surprise
when we hear of a "foremost citizen," the "leader in all good works,"
suddenly gone wrong; not the least cause for surprise. For it was not he
that was moral, but Society.
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