Nevertheless,
he had now been in the business five years. He was beginning to see
through and around it. As yet he had not lost one iota of his enthusiasm
for the game; but here and there, once in a while, some of the necessary
delays and slow, long repetitions of entirely mechanical processes left
him leisure to feel irked, to look above him, beyond the affairs that
surrounded him. At such times the old blank, doped feeling fell across
his mind. It had always been so definite a symptom in his childhood of
that state wherein he simply could not drag himself to blow up the
embers of his extinguished enthusiasm, that he recoiled from himself in
alarm. He felt his whole stability of character on trial. If he could
not "make good" here, what excuse could there be for him; what was there
left for him save the profitless and honourless life of the dilettante
and idler? He had caught on to a big business remarkably well, and it
was worse than childish to lose his interest in the game even for the
fraction of a second. Of course, it amounted to nothing but that. He
never did his work better than that spring.
Pages:
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426