In Crane’s widely anthologized “The Wayfarer,” the speaker narrates a little ditty about a traveler who sets out down the “pathway to truth.” The traveler is immediately “struck with astonishment” that the pathway is overgrown with weeds.
So the traveler remarks that obviously nobody had traveled down this path for quite some time. Then he notices that each weed is actually “a singular knife.” It is at this point that the traveler decides he will also abandon this pathway to truth and look for another road.
Of course, the implication is that like all the others who have tried and then abandoned the way to truth, this traveler will not get to truth either, because he would rather travel an easier path.