“We have three faculties in us,” Thyrsis propounded—“intellect, feeling, and will; and to be a complete human being, we have to develop all of them.”

“But you spend so much time piling up learning!”

“I need to know a great many things,” he said. “I’m not conscious of studying anything I don’t need for my purpose.”

“What is the purpose?” she asked.

He touched the precious manuscript. “This,” he said.

There was a pause.

“But you lose so much when you cut yourself off from the world,” said Corydon. “And there are other people, whom you might help.”

“People don’t need my help; or at least, they don’t want it.”

“But how can you know that—if you never go among them?”

“I can judge by the lives they live.”