He had the philosophical temperament.
He took things as they came. Great natural phenomena, like Lora Delane
Porter, he accepted as part of life. When they were in his life, he
endured them stoically. When they went out of it, he got on without
them. Marcus Aurelius would have liked William Bannister Winfield. They
belonged to the same school of thought.
The years have a tendency to
destroy this placidity towards life and to develop in man a sense of
gratitude to fate for its occasional kindnesses; and Kirk, having been
in the world longer than William Bannister, did not take the gifts of
the gods so much for granted. He was profoundly grateful for what had
happened. That Lora Delane Porter should have retired from active
interference with his concerns was much; but that he should have had
the incredible good fortune to be freed from the burden of John
Bannister's money was more.
If ever money was the root of all evil, this had been. It had come into
his life like a poisonous blight, withering and destroying wherever it
touched. It had changed Ruth; it had changed William Bannister; it had
changed himself; it was as if the spirit of the old man had lived on,
hating him and working him mischief. He always had superstitious fear
of it; and events had proved him right.
And now the cloud had rolled away.
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