“But nothing worth doing.”
Whereupon Aunt Judy told No. 3 that he was just like Dr. Faustus. On which, of course, No. 3 wanted to know what Dr. Faustus was like, and Aunt Judy answered, that he was just like him, only a great deal older and very learned.
“Only quite different, then,” suggested No. 3.
“No,” said Aunt Judy, “not quite different, for he came one day to the same conclusion that you have done, namely, that there was nothing to do, worth doing in the world.”
“I don’t say the world, I only say here,” observed No. 3; “there’s plenty to do elsewhere, I dare say.”
“So you think, because you have not tried else where,” answered Aunt Judy. “But Dr. Faustus, who had tried elsewhere, thought everywhere alike, and declared there was nothing worth doing anywhere, although he had studied law, physic, divinity, and philosophy all through, and knew pretty nearly everything.”
“Then you see he did not get much good out of learning,” remarked No. 3.
“I do see,” was the reply.
“And what became of him?”
“Ah, that’s the point,” replied Aunt Judy, “and a very remarkable point too. As soon as he got into the state of fancying there was nothing to do, worth doing, in God’s world, the evil spirit came to him, and found him something to do in what I may, I am sure, call the devil’s world—I mean, wickedness.”