'But political events?' he suggested.
'They do not attract me. They are ignoble. They are for the most part contemptibly ill-managed, and to think that after so many thousands of years humanity has not really progressed beyond the wild beasts' method of settling disputes——'
'There is so much of the wild beast in it. With such an opinion of political life why do you counsel me to seek it?'
'You are a man. There is nothing else for a man who has talent, and who is—who is as you are, désœuvré. Intellectual work would be better, but you do not care for it, it seems. Since your "Mexico"——'
'The "Mexico" was no work of mine.'
'Oh yes, pardon me: I have read it. All your notes, all your addenda, show how the learning of the editor was even superior to that of the original author.'
'No; all that I could do was to simplify his immense erudition and arrange it. I never loved the work; do not accredit me with so much industry: but it was a debt that I paid, and paid easily too, for the materials lay all to my hand, if in disorder.'
'The Marquis Xavier must at least have infused his own love of archæology and science into you?'
'I can scarcely say even so much. I have a facility at acquiring knowledge, which is not a very high quality. Things come easily to me. I fear if Herr Joachim examined me he would find my science shallow.'
'You have so many talents that perhaps you are like one of your own Mexican forests; one luxuriance kills another.'