“In life or in books?”
“In both perhaps—one has them certainly in books—in records. Do you know this book?”
Miriam sceptically accepted the bulky volume he took down from the book-crowded mantelshelf.
“Oh how interesting” she said insincerely when she had read Great Thoughts from Great Lives on the cover.... I ought to have said I don’t like extracts. “Lives of great men all remind us. We can make our lives sublime,” she read aloud under her breath from the first page.... I ought to go. I can’t enter into this.... I hate ‘great men’ I think....
“That book has been a treasure-house to me—for many years. I know it now almost by heart. If it interests you, you will allow me I hope to present it to you.”
“Oh you must not let me deprive you of it—oh no. It is very kind of you; but you really mustn’t.” She looked up and returned quickly to the fascinating pages. Sentences shone out striking at her heart and brain ... names in italics; Marcus Aurelius ... Lao-Tse. Confucius ... Clement of Alexandria ... Jacob Boehme. “It’s full of the most fascinating things. Oh no; I couldn’t think of taking it. You must keep it. Who is Jacob Boehme? That name always fascinates me. I must have read something, somewhere, a long time ago. I can’t remember. But it is such a wonderful name.”
“Jacob Boehme was a German visionary. You will find of course all shades of opinion there.”
“All contradicting each other; that’s the worst of it. Still, I suppose all roads lead to Rome.”
“I see you have thought a great deal.”
“Well” said Miriam feverishly, “there’s always science, always all that awful business of science, and no getting rid of it.”