"No, we have simply to consider our specialty and we find them ready at hand. Have you done so?"
"I am dazed, and my brain works capriciously."
"Except in the interest of your desires. What are they?"
"Wealth for independence, leisure for indulgence, and fame, the outcome of talent."
His luminous eyes looked out over the water, as he said: "The universal hunt of mankind is for happiness, and he searches for it in as many ways as there are peculiarities of disposition. Does he ever really find it? Many weary hearts are covered with the soft down of wealth. Mischief lurks in indulgence, and fame dazzles but to elude. It is wiser to accept what the gods give, and use the gifts for the betterment of others as well as ourselves."
"Meaningless words, when one is at enmity with the gods for withholding. What fine spun theories we mortals have!"
To the listener every conversation contains a deal of commonplace: it may be that the speakers really have nothing interesting to say, and it may be that their conversation is so personal as to interest themselves only. The reader occupies the position of a listener, and it is the duty of the author to suppress all commonplace dialogue, unless, as sometimes happens, it assists in plot or character development. Conversation like the following is—let us hope—interesting to the parties concerned, but the reader would be delivered from it as from a plague.
"I am so glad to get one desire of my heart."
"And that is?" said Al.
"Snow!"