“I don’t think they stop,” I said. “I think they never did try, but in youth such people merely had more stimulation from without.”
“Now, my grandfather,” she said, “was an intelligent man, and he is losing his memory.”
“Is he losing the valuable thing? Does he love you less, understand you less? Are you sure the memory he is losing is the thing he still needs?”
She saw what I meant. She was struck by it.
I went on: “One might lose the ability to do mathematics, when one had gained all there was to be got out of mathematics.”
She said: “I think you are right. I understand that.”
Now when Ruth insisted again that matter was something binding, something to be left behind, Alfred said:
“I don’t think it is binding.”
“Neither do I,” said Virginia.
“Neither do I,” said I, “for we can always express ourselves in a new way. The man who has written a book is not dumb afterward.”