‘I have lost the faculty of reading: early in life I was a student, but books become insipid when one is rich with the wisdom of a wandering life.’
‘Do you write?’
‘I have tried, but mediocrity disgusts me. In literature a second-rate reputation is no recompense for the evils that authors are heirs to.’
‘Yet, without making your compositions public, you might relieve your own feelings in expressing them. There is a charm in creation.’
‘My sympathies are strong,’ replied Walstein. ‘In an evil hour I might descend from my pedestal; I should compromise my dignity with the herd; I should sink before the first shaft of ridicule.’
‘You did not suffer from this melancholy when travelling?’
‘Occasionally: but the fits were never so profound, and were very evanescent.’
‘Travel is action,’ replied Schulembourg. ‘Believe me, that in action you alone can find a cure.’
‘What is action?’ inquired Walstein. ‘Travel I have exhausted. The world is quiet. There are no wars now, no revolutions. Where can I find a career?’
‘Action,’ replied Schulembourg, ‘is the exercise of our faculties. Do not mistake restlessness for action. Murillo, who passed a long life almost within the walls of his native city, was a man of great action. Witness the convents and the churches that are covered with his exploits. A great student is a great actor, and as great as a marshal or a statesman. You must act, Mr. Walstein, you must act; you must have an object in life; great or slight, still you must have an object. Believe me, it is better to be a mere man of pleasure than a dreamer.’