"That which you are you will never be; that which you can you will
never do; that which you ought to become you will never attain to!
As you, so your mother before you. She turned aside--and your
father too--into absolute folly; perhaps their fathers before
them! This is a branch of a great family who never attained to
what they were intended for."
"Something different has misled each one of us, but we have all
been misled. Why is that so? We have greater aims than many
others, but the others drove along the beaten highway right
through the gates of Fortune's house. We stray away from the
highway and into the wood. See! am I not there myself now? Away
from the highway and into the wood, as though I were led by an
inward law. Into the wood." He looked round among the mountain-
ashes, the birches, and other leafy trees in autumn tints. They
stood all round, dripping, as though they wept for his sorrow.
"Yes, yes; they will see me hang here, like Absalom by his long
hair." He had not recalled this old picture a moment before he
stopped, as though seized by a strong hand.
He must not fly from this, but try to fathom it.
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