"Extremes are wrong, desolate, abominable, I begin to think," Valentine went on. "Angel and devil, both should be scourged—the one to be purged of excessive good, the other of excessive evil, and between them, midway, is man, natural man. Julian, you are natural man, and you are more right than I, who, it seems, have been educating you by presenting to you for contemplation my own disease."
"Well, but is natural man worth much? That is the question! I don't know."
"He fights, and drinks, and loves, and, oftener than the renowned philosopher thinks, he knows how to die. And then he lives thoroughly, and that is probably what we were sent into the world to do."
"Can't we live thoroughly without, say, the fighting and the drinking,
Val?"
Valentine got up, too, as if excited, and stood by the fire by Julian's side.
"Battle calls forth heroism," he said, "which else would sleep."
"And drinking?"
"Leads to good fellowship."
This last remark was so preposterously unlike Valentine that Julian could not for a moment accept it as uttered seriously. His mood changed, and he burst out suddenly into a laugh.
"You have been taking me in all the time," he exclaimed, "and I actually was fool enough to think you serious."