One may never move a dozen miles
from the village of his birth and yet be of the happy company of
romantics. Jeff could find in a sunset, in a stretch of windswept
plain,
in the sight of water through leafless trees, something that
filled his heart with emotion.
Perhaps the very freedom of these vacation excursions helped to
feed his growing discontent. The yeast of rebellion was forever
stirring in him. He wanted to come to life with open mind. He was
possessed of an insatiable curiosity about it. This took him to
the slums of Verden, to the redlight district, to Socialist
meetings, to a striking coal camp near the city where he narrowly
escaped being killed as a scab. He knew that something was wrong
with our social life. Inextricably blended with success and
happiness he saw everywhere pain, defeat, and confusion. Why must
such things be? Why poverty at all?
But when he flung his questions at Pearson, who had charge of the
work in sociology, the explanations of the professor seemed to him
pitifully weak.
In the ethics class he met the same experience. A chance reference
to Drummond's "Natural Law in the Spiritual world" introduced him
to that stimulating book.
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