“But what if the fable is true?” asked Ted.
“It may be true, but how can I tell? All I know is that it isn’t convincing to me. It may be so, or it may not. But if it doesn’t convince me, what am I to do? I would give the world to be convinced of it.”
“She is very happy in your love,” said Ted.
“She is the best and sweetest woman on this earth,” said Tom. “I love her more and more every day. But I do love my art too. My life would be incomplete—impossible without either.”
Ted sighed.
“You are very fortunate. Your circle of completeness is widening every day. You are in love with love and life.”
“Teddy, do leave that place,” said Tom earnestly. “It is changing you. You always were narrow, you know, as I often told you, but you are getting narrower. You only care about dead things. You had better care about the worst of living things than the best of dead.”
“So you tell me. But no one can realize any one else’s conviction, as you have also told me. You are playing symphonies to the deaf. It may be so, or it may not be so. How can I tell?”
“But you know it is so,” said Tom.
“Sometimes I think it must be so. I know, at any rate, that you, for instance, get more keen and active happiness out of life than I do. The best emendation doesn’t give me the quality of pleasure which the smell of a spring morning or a hundred other things give you.”