He wrote in answer to a loving remonstrance:
"You see, my dear, I can't help it. The ideas which have taken hold
of me will not let me rest; nor can I see anything else worth
thinking of. How can it be otherwise, when to me society, which to
many seems an orderly arrangement for allowing decent people to get
through their lives creditably and with some pleasure, seems mere
cannibalism; nay, worse (for there ought to be hope in that), is
grown so corrupt, so steeped in hypocrisy and lies, that one turns
from one stratum of it to another with hopeless loathing. . . .
Meantime, what a little ruffles me is this, that if I do a little
fail in my duty some of my friends will praise me for failing
instead of blaming me."
And then at last, after every sordid circumstance of intrigue and
squabble and jealousy, one after another of the organisations he
joined broke down. Half gratefully and half mournfully he
disengaged himself, not because he did not believe in his
principles, but because he saw that the difficulties were
insuperable.
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