"As how?" I asked.
"By listening," replied Charteris, "to me, while I discourse of eternal verities. This happens to be one of my loquacious afternoons—"
And here I raised my hand, in utterly unheeded protest.
"—For you inform me that you need for this debatable Biography," John Charteris continued, "an epilogue,—which of course ought to be spoken by the same person who afforded the prologue. Well, I shall overlook your crass misrepresentation of me in that prologue, which you so ill-advisedly called Beyond Life. You will remember how many 'spiritualists' turned to it with fervor, and away from it with disgust? I, none the less, forgive: and off-hand, I would say—"
"No, Charteris! No, for I must myself contrive this epilogue—"
"But, dear man, I have it already complete, to the last paradox. It is in my mind now, hastening to the tip of my tongue—"
"No, Charteris, I will not hear you!"
"—Art, just as Schiller long ago perceived, is an outcome of the human impulse to play, and to avoid tedium by using up such vigor as stays unemployed by the necessities of earning a living. The artist is life's playboy. The artist, to avert the threats of boredom, rather desperately makes sport with the universe—"
"It is a universe you are quitting—"
"—For, as you of course perceive, the literary artist plays: he does nothing else, except with haste and grudgingly: and the sole end of his endeavor is to divert himself—"