The domestic scene is over.
Now, he may be honestly convinced that nothing can be done. Let us
grant as much. But obviously it suits his pride to assume that nothing
can be done. To admit the contrary would be to admit that he was
leaving something undone, that he had organized his existence
clumsily, even that he had made a fundamental miscalculation in the
arrangement of his career. He has confessed to grave dissatisfaction.
It behoves him, for the sake of his own dignity and reputation, to be
quite sure that the grave dissatisfaction is unavoidable, inevitable,
and that the blame for it rests with the scheme of the universe, and
not with his particular private scheme. His r?le is that of the brave,
strong, patient victim of an alleged natural law, by reason of which
the present must ever be sacrificed to the future, and he discovers a
peculiar miserable delight in the r?le. "Miserable" is the right
adjective.
II
Nevertheless, in his quality of a wise plain man, he would never agree
that any problem of human conduct, however hard and apparently
hopeless, could not be solved by dint of sagacity and
ingenuity--provided it was the problem of another person! He is quite
fearfully good at solving the problems of his friends.
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