At the close of one cold, blustering day, when his evening meal had been eaten in solitude, he sat down before the great fire which roared in the chimney.  He read awhile, but grew tired of his book and threw it down.  The melancholy which he had suppressed so long rose at last, and there burst on him the apparent uselessness of the task he had gratuitously assigned himself.  Why had he ever done it?  Why should he be sitting there alone in his cabin when by his side there might be that radiant woman whose presence would dispel instantly and forever the loneliness which ceaselessly gnawed at his heart?  What, after all, was to be gained by this self-sacrifice?  Life is very short, and there are few pleasures to be had, at best.  Why should he not seize them as fast as they came within his reach?  Had he not suffered enough already?  Who had ever suffered more?  It was only an unnecessary cruelty that had even suggested such agony as he was now experiencing.  He was being cheated out of legitimate pleasures, and that by the advice of an old ascetic whose own capacity for enjoyment had been dried up, and who was envious of the happiness of others!  As these thoughts rushed through his soul, he could not but perceive that he had been forced once more to enter the arena and to fight over the old battle which he had lost in the lumberman’s cabin three years before!  And he found to his dismay how much harder it was to fight these foes of virtue when they come to us not as vague imaginations of experiences which we have never tried, but as vivid memories of real events.  Then he had only dreamed of the sweet fruits of the knowledge of good and evil:  but now the taste was in his mouth, to whet his appetite and increase his hunger.  The slumbering selfhood of his soul woke and clamored for its rights.

It was Chateaubriand who affirmed that the human heart is like one of those southern pools which are quiet and beautiful on the surface, but in the bottom of which there lies an alligator!  However calm the surface of the exile’s soul appeared, there was a monster in its depth, and now it rose upon him.  In his struggles with it he paced the floor, sank despairingly into his chair, and fell on his knees by turns.  Animal desires and brute instincts grappled with intellectual convictions and spiritual aspirations; flesh and blood with mind and spirit; skepticism with trust; despair with hope.

The old forest had been the theater of many combats.  In earth, air and water, birds, animals and fishes had struggled with each other for supremacy and existence.  Beasts had fought with Indians and Indians with white men; but no battle had been more significant or tragic than the one which was taking place in the quiet cabin.  There was no noise and no bloodshed, but it was a struggle to the death.  It was no new strife, but one which has repeated itself in human hearts since they began to beat.  It cannot be avoided by plunging into the crowds of great cities, nor by fleeing to the solitudes of forests, for we carry our battleground with us.  The inveterate foes encamp upon the fields, and when they are not fighting they are recuperating their strength for struggles still to come.