"Well, I want as much as I can want," he said. "And yet, if you are what I shall be (and I feel that is so), you haven't got it yet. Why is that?"
"Perhaps you aren't wanting enough," said I. "To get it, would you give up everything else, would you live, if necessary, in squalor and friendlessness? Would you put up with complete failure, as the world counts failure?"
He drew a little away from me; his tense arm got slack and heavy.
"But there's no question of failure," he said. "If I get it, that means success."
"But it's a question of whether you will eagerly suffer anything that can happen sooner than relinquish your idea. Can you cling to your idea, whatever happens?"
He was silent a moment.
"I don't know," he said.
"That means you aren't wanting enough," said I. "And you don't take trouble enough. You never do."
"I wonder! Is that why you haven't got all I want?"
"Probably. One of the reasons, at any rate. Another is that we are meant to fail. That's what we are here for. Just to go on failing, and go on trying again."