"I don't mean in that way—rather not! He's as straight as a die. I mean, you'll have to help him to walk on his two legs, Meg—stop him standing on his head, make him practical."
"I love him for it, Freddy."
"But it doesn't pay. We're of this world and we've got to live in this world. Mike's always trying to get beyond it, to get into touch with the other side. It's no good meddling with that sort of thing, it always has a disastrous effect on the human mind and human happiness, which proves to me that we're not intended to know or to get in touch with those who have left us. It's unwise to give up one's thoughts to the supernatural."
"Perhaps it is," Meg said, "but why should we be contented to stand still about all that sort of thing, while we leap ahead in science and material progress and everything else? Mike thinks the true understanding is coming, the darkness we have lived in is passing away."
"He may be right," Freddy said. "But for your happiness, Meg, I wish he'd chuck it. The 'sublime truth of spiritualism' he talks about, and the 'God-ruled world-state'—the one's dangerous to his bodily welfare, the other's the Utopian dream of failures. I don't want you to marry a failure, old girl. I want you to have the sort of life you're fitted for."
"People must be what they are, Freddy, and failure isn't a failure if it's done its bit. Rome wasn't built in a day, or the union of Italy achieved without broken hearts—modern Italy had its failures, its Utopian dreamers, long before Garibaldi's triumphant thousand marched into Rome."
"That's true, only one never wants a failure to be a member of one's own family. I don't want a dreamer for a brother-in-law, Meg—not for your husband."
"The Lamptons always want to come in with the victorious legions," Meg said. They were nearing the hut. "It seems as if the real victors in life were what we call the failures, the pioneers of truth."
"I'm awfully glad, anyway, Meg. Mike's a lucky chap and you're a lucky girl. You know, I think the world of Mike!"
"We aren't engaged, Freddy."