Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/854

732 that he made a pretence of keeping in mind the ordinary human hopes. He wrote home of a desire to marry some sensible woman who would not insist on his settling down; he wanted to make money, to be independent so that he might drug himself with more travel and more knowledge of the world. To this end he organized caravans and led them with feverish energy over hundreds of miles of desert. But it is significant that whenever success was in reach he always managed to miss it, and then, curiously enough, experience the last bitterness of disappointment. Like some noble animal caught in a garden, he ignored the things at hand and persisted in butting his head against the wall.