“Because I no longer see that joy of deliverance with which you entered upon this humble calling. It seems to have passed like a lost perfume, Richling. Have you let your toil become a task once more?”
Richling dropped his eyes and pushed the ground with the toe of his boot.
“I didn’t want you to find that out, Doctor.”
“I was afraid, from the first, it would be so,” said the physician.
“I don’t see why you were.”
“Well, I saw that the zeal with which you first laid hold of your work was not entirely natural. It was good, but it was partly artificial,—the more credit to you on that account. But I saw that by and by you would have to keep it up mainly by your sense of necessity and duty. ‘That’ll be the pinch,’ I said; and now I see it’s come. For a long time you idealized the work; but at last its real dulness has begun to overcome you, and you’re discontented—and with a discontentment that you can’t justify, can you?”
“But I feel myself growing smaller again.”
“No wonder. Why, Richling, it’s the discontent makes that.”
“Oh, no! The discontent makes me long to expand. I never had so much ambition before. But what can I do here? Why, Doctor, I ought to be—I might be”—
The physician laid a hand on the young man’s shoulder.