THE WINDOWthere, his eyes fixed on the storm, trying to theend to pierce the darkness, he would die stand-ing. He would never reach R.

He stood stock still, by the urn, with thegeranium flowing over it. How many men ina thousand million, he asked himself, reach Zafter all? Surely the leader of a forlorn hope mayask himself that, and answer, without treacheryto the expedition behind him, “One perhaps".One in a generation. Is he to be blamed then ifhe is not that one? provided he has toiled honestly,given to the best of his power, till he has nomore left to give? And his fame lasts how long?It is permissible even for a dying hero to thinkbefore he dies how men will speak of him here-after. His fame lasts perhaps two thousandyears. And what are two thousand years? (askedMr. Ramsay ironically, staring at the hedge).What, indeed, if you look from a mountain-topdown the long wastes of the ages? The verystone one kicks with one’s boot will outlastShakespeare. His own little light would shine,not very brightly, for a year or two, and wouldthen be merged in some bigger light, and thatin a bigger still. (He looked into the darkness,into the intricacy of the twigs.) Who then couldblame the leader of that forlorn party which afterall has climbed high enough to see the waste of59
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