's
and sat on a seat far back.

St. Paul was an anti-saint, I think, who very badly needed to get married
and be answered back now and then. I believe it is possible that he was
unworthy of that great house called by his name. The gospel of a very
splendid detachment speaks within its walls, its windows turn inward, its
music sings to itself. Tossed City sinners go in and out, and pass, and
penetrate, but still the music dreams, and still the dim gold blinks
above their heads. A muffled God walks the aisles, and you, in the
bristling wilderness of chairs, can clutch at His skirts and never see
His eyes. Nothing comes forward from that altar to meet you. It is as if
He walked talking to Himself, and as if even His speech were lost in
those devouring spaces.

Mr. Russell sat near the door, and found only his thoughts and the
shuffle of seeking feet to keep him company.

"An Older and Wiser Man ..." he thought. "God forgive me for
letting it pass."

If he had thought it worth while to profess an "ism" at all, he would
have been a fatalist. He was the victim of an unwitty cynicism, and of a
heavy irresponsibility. He applied either "It isn't worth while" or "It
doesn't matter" to everything. He never expressed his thoughts to
himself--it was not worth while,--but I think he knew within himself
that life was made of paper, and thrown together in a crackling chaos.
There was no depth in anything, and a mere thought could slay the
highest thing in the world. The only thing that ever made his heart
laugh was the idea of fineness finding place in himself. A dream of
himself in a heroic light sometimes made him poke himself in the ribs,
and mock the farce of human vanity. He was like a man in a world that
lacked mirrors, a man who sees his dark deformed shadow on the sands,
and thinks it represents him fairly.

He was without self-consciousness, knowing that he was not worth his own
recognition. At home he often recited little confused poems of his own
composition to his Hound, and never noticed the surprise of the servants.
He never knew that in the company of Mr. and Mrs. Gustus and Kew he was
hardly allowed to utter three consecutive words, although, when he was
away from them, and especially when he was with the 'bus-conductor, he
felt a delightful lack of restraint.

As he sat down and looked at the far unanswering altar, he had two dim
thoughts. One was that a man might get Older and Wiser, without getting
old enoug