His thoughts strayed to
Rome, to Cairo, to Calcutta, to Singapore, to the stages of those two
patient journeys round the world, made from a sense of duty, in search
of a widening of that sheerly human knowledge which life had hitherto
denied him. Having started from London and got back to London again, he
saw how imperfectly he had profited by his opportunities, how much he
had missed. It was characteristic of him to begin all over again, and
more thoroughly, conscientiously revisiting the Pyramids, the Parthenon,
and the Taj Mahal, endeavoring to capture some of that true spirit of
appreciation of which he read in books.
In his way he was not wholly unsuccessful, since by dint of steady
gazing he heightened his perceptive powers, whether it were for Notre
Dame, the Sistine Madonna, or the Alps, each of which he took with the
same seriousness. What eluded him was precisely that human element which
was the primary object of his quest. He learned to recognize the beauty
of a picture or a mountain more or less at sight; but the soul of these
things, of which he thought more than of their outward aspects, the soul
that looks through the eyes and speaks with the tongues of peoples,
remained inaccessible to his yearnings.
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