“Fatal to what? Not to his magnificent vitality.”
Again there was a meditative moment. “And is his magnificent vitality the cause of his vices?”
“Your questions are formidable, but I'm glad you put them. I was thinking of his noble intellect. His vices, as you say, have been much exaggerated: they consist mainly after all in one comprehensive misfortune.”
“A want of will?”
“A want of dignity.”
“He doesn't recognise his obligations?”
“On the contrary, he recognises them with effusion, especially in public: he smiles and bows and beckons across the street to them. But when they pass over he turns away, and he speedily loses them in the crowd. The recognition is purely spiritual—it isn't in the least social. So he leaves all his belongings to other people to take care of. He accepts favours, loans, sacrifices, with nothing more restrictive than an agony of shame. Fortunately we're a little faithful band, and we do what we can.” I held my tongue about the natural children, engendered, to the number of three, in the wantonness of his youth. I only remarked that he did make efforts—often tremendous ones. “But the efforts,” I said, “never come to much; the only things that come to much are the abandonments, the surrenders.”
“And how much do they come to?”
“I've told you before that your questions are terrible! They come, these mere exercises of genius, to a great body of poetry, of philosophy, a notable mass of speculation, of discovery. The genius is there, you see, to meet the surrender; but there's no genius to support the defence.”
“But what is there, after all, at his age, to show?”