"Well. It sounds foolish," said Roger. "But I was impressed by the way in which sleeping sickness was brought to my notice again and again. So I studied it, as well as one so ignorant of science could. I am interested now, because you've been there and seen it all. It is always very interesting to hear another man's life-experience. But it is more than that. The disease must be one of the most frightful things of modern times. I think it splendid of you to have gone out, as you have, to study it for the good of mankind."
"That was only self-indulgence," said Lionel. "It's queer that you should be interested. You're the only person I've met yet since I came back who is really interested. Of course, the doctors have been interested. But I believe that most Londoners have lost the faculty for serious mental interest. It has been etiolated out of them. They like your kind of thing, 'sugar and spice and all things nice.' They like catchwords. They don't study hard nor get at the roots of things. I met a Spaniard the other day, Centeno, a chemist, I don't mean a druggist. He said that we had begun to wither at the top."
"I don't agree," said Roger. "Spain is too withered to judge. Our head is as sound oak as it always was. Were you ever a soldier, Heseltine?"
"Yes, in a sort of a way. I was in the militia."
"Did you want to be a soldier? Why did you leave it?"
"It isn't a life, unless you're on a General Staff. Everybody ought to be able to be a soldier; I believe that; but it doesn't seem to me to go very far as a life's pursuit. One can only become a good soldier by passing all one's days in fighting. That doesn't lead to anything. I would like best of all to be a writer, only, of course, I can't be. I haven't got the brains. I suppose you'll say they're not essential."
"They are essential, and you've probably got as many as any writer; but writing is an art, and success in art depends on all sorts of subtle, instantaneous relations between the brain's various faculties and the hand. Are you really serious, though?"
"Yes. I'd give the world to be able to write. To write poetry. Or I'd like to be able to write a play. You see, what I believe is, that this generation is full of all sorts of energy which ought not to be applied to dying things. I would like to write a poem on the right application of energy. That is the important thing nowadays. The English have lots of energy, and so much of it is wasted. The energy wasted is just so much setting back the clock. The energy wasted at schools alone—— If I'd not been a juggins at school, I'd have been fully qualified by this time, and been able to get a lot more fun out of things, finding out what goes on. Don't you find writing awfully interesting?"
"I find it makes the world more interesting. Writing lets one into life. But when I meet a man like yourself I realise that it isn't a perfect life for a man. It isn't active enough. It doesn't seem to me to exercise enough of the essential nature. Have you ever tried to write? I expect you have written a lot of splendid things. Will you shew me what you have written?"
"Oh," said Lionel, "I've only written a few sonnets and things. Out there alone at night when the lions are roaring, you can't help it. They used to roar all round me. I was only in a native hut. It gives one a solemn feeling. I used to make up verses every night."