With characteristic brevity and diffidence, he only tells us, toward the end, that he loved the light and that he was determined to trace some moral chain of being - no simple matter in a world that, in his own words, lies "spread out around us like a bewildering and stupendous dream." His intention was, however, not only to find evidence of a moral life in a disorderly society but also to give us the poetry of the bewildering and stupendously dreamlike world in which we find ourselves. There are few people around who set themselves such a task, who put their souls to work in such a way. "Normal America" might ask, if it were inclined to formulate such a question, "What sense does that actually make?" Perhaps not much, as "sense" is commonly defined. But there are other definitions. For me no one makes more sense, no one is so interesting, as a man who engages his soul in an enterprise of this kind. I find myself, as I grow older, increasingly drawn to those who live as John did. Those who chose such enterprise, who engage in such a struggle, make all the interest of life for us. The life John led leaves us in his debt. We are his debtors, and we are indebted to him even for the quality of the pain we feel at his death.
