Warwick Deeping

“ Merlin's eyes seemed to look leagues away over moor, hill, and valley. A strange tenderness played upon his lips, and there was a radiance upon his face impossible to describe. It was like the face of a lover, a dreamer of dreams.
"A man is a mystery to himself," he said.
"But to God? "
"I know no God, save the god my own soul. Let me live and die, nothing more. Why curse one's life with a 'to be'? ”