imposed
upon him. To the stern dictates of duty alone did he sacrifice his home
and ease, the pleasures, refinements, and luxuries of civilized life.
His was the Spartan heroism, the inflexibility of the Roman, the
enduring heroism of the Englishman--never to relinquish his work, though
his heart yearned for home; never to surrender his obligations, until he
could write "Finis" to his work.

Yet who shall say that the years spent alone at the very heart of Nature
had not made him the possessor of that "inward eye," which, as
Wordsworth says, "is the bliss of solitude." For many years he lived in
Africa deprived of books, and yet when Stanley found him, he learned to
his surprise, that Livingstone could still recite whole poems from
Byron, Burns, Tennyson, Longfellow, and other great poets. The reason is
found in the fact that all his life he lived within himself. He lived in
a world in which he revolved inwardly, out of which he awoke only to
attend to his immediate practical necessities. It was a happy inner
world, peopled with his own friends, acquaintances, relatives, readings,
ideas, and associations. Blessed is the man who has found the inner life
more real than the trivial outer one. To him mere external annoyances
are but as the little insects, which he may brush away at will. No man
can be truly great who has not built up for himself a subjective world
into which he may retire at will. The little child absorbed in a
mythical land peopled by fairies and Prince Charmings is nearest to
possessing such an inner life; and we must become as little children. To
some it is a God-given gift; others may acquire it, as Jack London tells
us, by "going into the waste places, and there sitting down with our
souls." There comes then, the overwhelming realization of the charms and
beauties of nature--man is a pygmy, an abstraction, an unreality. This
had come to our hero. Added to the strength of his inner life
Livingstone had the deep sympathy with Nature in all her moods. He
became enthusiastic when he described the beauties of the Moero scenery.
The splendid mountains, tropical vegetation, thundering cataracts, noble
rivers, stirred his soul into poetic expression. His tired spirit
expanded in the presence of the charms of nature. He could never pass
through an African forest, with its solemn stillness and serenity,
without wishing to be buried quietly under the dead leaves where he
would be sure to rest undisturbed. In Engl