Yet, hope—the hope that we, human beings, can be better than we are—dies hard; perhaps one can no longer live if one allows that hope to die. But it is also hard to see what one sees. One sees that most human beings are wretched, and, in one way or another, become wicked: because they are so wretched. And one’s turning away, then, from what I have called the welcome table is dictated by some mysterious vow one scarcely knows one’s taken—never to allow oneself to fall so low. Lower, perhaps, much lower, to the very dregs: but never there.
