ing the
argument--you'd say, summing it up, I suppose. I tell you, it's all
mental, and your mind's diseased. You think you're injured by the scheme
of things. Well, change your opinion, and the injury is gone. Didn't one
of your old philosophers say something like that?"

"He didn't give it quite the application you do, Bob. How can I change
an opinion that is based accurately on facts? I don't make the facts: if
I did, my opinion of myself would be yet worse than it is. I have a
brain--such as it is--and a conscience: I can keep them clean and awake,
even on Crusoe's island. Nothing better than that, my boy. 'What is the
good of man? Rectitude of will, and to understand the appearances of
things.'"

"Well, Hartman, if you had two or three kids, as I have, you'd see
things differently. They would give you an interest in life."

"A tragically solemn one, no doubt. That responsibility at least can't
be forced on a man. He can let his part of the curse die out with him."

"Jim, you _are_ selfish. You were made to gladden some woman's eye and
fill her heart. You were the strongest man of the nine, and the best oar
in the crew. We all envied your looks, and there's more of them now.
You could outshine all the gilded youth I know, and hold your own with
the best. I remember a girl that thought so, a dozen years ago.
Somewhere a woman is waiting for you to come and claim her. Why will you
rob her and the world? This wilful waste is selfish wickedness, that's
what it is."

"Think so if you must: it's a free country. But you sugar the pill too
much. Who misses me--or what if some few did for a while? They've
forgotten me long ago. I tell you, I served society by deserting it."

"It's all very well now, Jim, while your youth and strength last. But
after you turn forty, or fifty say, these woods and whims will lose
their charm; you'll get bored as you've never been yet. The emptiness
and dreariness that you theorize about will become stern realities:
you'll pine, when it's too late, for human affection and some hold on
life. My lad, you are storing up for yourself a sad old age."

I thought I had him at last. His surface lightness was all gone: he
looked intent and solemn. "No doubt of it, Bob; not the least in life. I
am human, and the worst is yet to come. But do you think me such a cad
as to go back on my principles in search of so poor a shadow as
happiness? Shall I, in base hope of easing my own burden, throw it on
s