After all, the two things seem
to have been bound together rather closely--just as you said."
He restored his pencil to his pocket, palpably pulled himself together,
and proceeded:
"Oh, my theory was wholly rational--far more rational than yours;
rationally it was perfect. It was a wholly logical recoil from the
idleness, the lack of purpose, the slipshod self-indulgence under many
names that I saw, and see, everywhere about me. I have work to
do--serious work of large importance--and it seemed to me my duty to
carry it through at all hazards. I need not add that it still seems so.
Yet it was a life's work, already well along, and there was no need for
me to pay an excessive price for mere speed. I elected to let everything
go but intellect; I felt that I must do so; and in consequence, by the
simplest sort of natural law, all the rest of me was shriveling up--had
shriveled up, you will say. Yet I knew very well that my intellect was
not the biggest part of me. I have always understood that.... Still, it
seems that I required you to rediscover it for me in terms of everyday
life.
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