The
place was not any too warm, and he tried to make himself comfortable
between the blankets--but it was of little use. His soul was cold.
"This will never do," he said to himself. "This will never do. I'm not
sure whether I can stand much of this or not." Still he turned his face
to the wall, and after several hours sleep eventually came.
Chapter LIV
Those who by any pleasing courtesy of fortune, accident of birth,
inheritance, or the wisdom of parents or friends, have succeeded in
avoiding making that anathema of the prosperous and comfortable, "a
mess of their lives," will scarcely understand the mood of Cowperwood,
sitting rather gloomily in his cell these first days, wondering what, in
spite of his great ingenuity, was to become of him. The strongest have
their hours of depression. There are times when life to those endowed
with the greatest intelligence--perhaps mostly to those--takes on a
somber hue. They see so many phases of its dreary subtleties. It is
only when the soul of man has been built up into some strange
self-confidence, some curious faith in its own powers, based, no doubt,
on the actual presence of these same powers subtly involved in the body,
that it fronts life unflinchingly.
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