This was the effect of unchanged surroundings upon the unchanged
part of him. But there was a changed part, and the effect of unchanged
surroundings upon this was to make everything seem almost as strange as
though he had never had any life but his prison one, and was now born
into a new world.
All our lives long, every day and every hour, we are engaged in the
process of accommodating our changed and unchanged selves to changed and
unchanged surroundings; living, in fact, in nothing else than this
process of accommodation; when we fail in it a little we are stupid, when
we fail flagrantly we are mad, when we suspend it temporarily we sleep,
when we give up the attempt altogether we die. In quiet, uneventful
lives the changes internal and external are so small that there is little
or no strain in the process of fusion and accommodation; in other lives
there is great strain, but there is also great fusing and accommodating
power; in others great strain with little accommodating power. A life
will be successful or not according as the power of accommodation is
equal to or unequal to the strain of fusing and adjusting internal and
external changes.
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