d when he went away. If he
was out of work, it may have been a perfectly sincere belief that he
would find work elsewhere, or perhaps only a speculative hope that he
might. (These are not in the beginning genuine desertions, but often
become so later on.) It is possible that, beset by irritations and
perplexities, the thought of cutting his way out at one stroke from all
his difficulties made an appeal too strong to be resisted. Or perhaps he
flung out of the house and away, in a passion of anger and jealousy
which later crystallized into cold dislike. The spell of an infatuation
for another woman might well have been the cause; or he may have been
mentally deranged through alcohol. Simple weariness of the burden which
he has not strength of body or mind to carry and ought never to have
assumed is one attitude to be reckoned with, and failure to realize or
in his heart accept the binding nature of his obligations is another.

His temperamental instability may have been such that the desire for a
change--the "wanderlust"--was driving him to distraction. Or perhaps,
under the urge of his own subconscious feeling of failure, he may have
convinced himself that if he could "shake" the old environment and all
in it that hampered him, he could take a fresh start and make good. "If
I could only get to California," sighed Patrick Donald,[6] "I have a
feeling things would be different." With too much imagination to be
content with the situation in which he found himself, Donald had not
imagination enough to realize that he would have to take his old self
with him wherever he went, and that he might better fight things out
where he stood. Men of his sort yearn constantly for the future, not
realizing that in its truest sense the present _is_ the future.

Only in rare instances will the deserter accept the entire
responsibility for his act. To try to find justification for doing what
we want to do is characteristic of human beings, and the deserter is no
exception. He attempts to "rationalize" his conduct and so regain his
sense of self-approval and well-being by finding excuses and
justifications in the conduct of others. Even when the fault is all his,
he usually succeeds in making himself believe that his wife is more to
blame than he for his having left home.[7] The social worker who
attempts to deal with the situation the deserter creates should know
this attitude in advance and be prepared, through some simple
rule-of-thumb