Even the savage is not much troubled about the scheme of things. In the
beginning he was "torn out of the reeds," and in the end he melts into
the Unknown, and for the rest, there are beef and wives, and foes to
conquer. But then oxen and gulls are not, so far as we know, troubled
with any spiritual parts at all, and in the noble savage such things are
not cultivated. They come with civilization.
But perhaps in the majority this condition, so necessary to the more
placid forms of happiness, is born of a conjunction of physical and
religious developments. So it was, at least, with the rich and fortunate
man whom we have seen trudging along the wind-swept cliff. By nature and
education he was of a strongly and simply religious mind, as he was in
body powerful, placid, and healthy to an exasperating degree. It may be
said that it is easy to be religious and placid on ten thousand a year,
but Owen Davies had not always enjoyed ten thousand a year and one of
the most romantic and beautiful seats in Wales. From the time he was
seventeen, when his mother's death left him an orphan, till he reached
the age of thirty, some six years from the date of the opening of this
history, he led about as hard a life as fate could find for any man.
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