See life steadily?

This is meaningless without context. What kind of person is the boss? What is the situation? Etc.

The boss is blind? just kidding... Maybe context would be help to understand it

To me, with no more context, it means no more than what the words literally say.

The boss's son was killed in the first world war.
It's from a short story "The fly"-:The boss tried to see life steadily and to see it whole. He understood, within the few years of the greatest tragedy of his son's death, that there is no escape from fate. He did not lose his mental balance, but found refuge in religious philosophy.

I have provided the context sir.

silak12I have provided the context sir.

Thanks for doing that. To me it still means just what the words say. If you understand the words "steadily" and "whole", which I'm sure you do, then your ideas of what it means for this character to see life in that way are as good as anyone's.

With the context given, this seems to indicate that the boss was deeply injured psychologically by his son's death - to the point of no longer being able to look at life with a steady eye and a steady mind, and being unable to see life except in terms of his son's death, thus, his attempts to see life steadily and see it as a whole, which is usually the way people see life.