Had John been present, it is probable that ribald laughter had greeted this remark. He knew these moods. David did not.
“That’s true enough,” he responded gravely, “but who is to set the keynote? where’s your conductor of the band?”
“If,” said Corin, addressing himself to the sparkling water, “each man lived to the highest within him, there would be no need for any conductor.”
David frowned. He granted the high-soundingness of the statement, you may be sure, but somehow it did not strike him as altogether practical. He fell back on his band simile.
“A fellow,” he remarked, “may fancy he’s got a jolly good tune to play, and go at it for all he’s worth, but if it doesn’t fit in with the rest, it stands to reason a jumble will follow. If you could get hold of the right conductor, I fancy you’d do a precious deal better by playing second fiddle, or even by striking a note on a triangle every now and then, than by rattling off the best tune ever invented on your own.”
“My dear man,” cried Corin eagerly, “your theory is sound enough in a way; but if a man really lives to the highest in him, he’ll merely strike notes on a triangle if that’s his job.”
David shook his head.
“Maybe,” he said deliberately, “but there’s always human nature to reckon with, and there’s a good bit of difference between a man thinking a thing the highest, and it being the highest. You set out to do a thing thinking it’s the right thing to do, and when you get a good clinch on it, I’m blamed if you don’t begin to wonder if it was your job after all.”
Again Corin sighed, and with an almost aggressive patience.
“If you have honestly believed it to be the right thing to do,” he remarked carefully, “it is the right thing to do. Shakespeare never made a truer statement than when he said, ‘There’s nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.’ There’s the sum of all religion.”