“Why was that? Has dejection set in, then?”
“No, no.”
“You know the Latin saying: ‘Festina lente’? If you want to understand how slowly you must hasten, look at me.”
He had been going to add, “Look at these gray hairs,” but he did not. Just then he felt suddenly an invincible reluctance to call Vere’s attention to the signs of age apparent in him.
“I spoke to you about the admirable incentive of ambition,” he continued, after a moment. “But you must understand that I meant the ambition for perfection, not at all the ambition for celebrity. The satisfaction of the former may be a deep and exquisite joy—the partial satisfaction, for I suppose it can never be anything more than that. But the satisfaction of the other will certainly be Dead-sea fruit—fruit of the sea unlike that brought up by Ruffo, without lasting savor, without any real value. One should never live for that.”
The last words he spoke as if to himself, almost like a warning addressed to himself.
“I don’t believe I ever should,” Vere said quickly. “I never thought of such a thing.”
“The thought will come, though, inevitably.”
“How dreadful it must be to know so much about human nature as you do!”
“And yet how little I really know!”