Twenty. Oh, I know it is; and therefore I will have nothing to do with it.
Forty. You are a wild colt as yet, and kick against your traces. But the whip, the rein, and work, will soon break down that proud spirit of yours, and you will trot along obediently and patiently.
Twenty. That shall never be; sooner will I leave the world altogether. To suffer this, you call courage! And to be a humble, docile, broken brute, you call becoming wise!
Forty. You use names without discretion.
Twenty. Oh, you would give it a softer-sounding designation; but the fact, though you may disguise it to yourself, cannot be concealed. Do you labor or hope for any thing but the present, or beyond the next hour? Do you not live with your eyes fixed on the ground? Do you not thread your devious and obscure way through the world, content to be unknown, and never casting a glance on the millions that surround you? What is that wisdom of which you boast, but to know that every man is a robber, and to bar your door against him; that, friendship is an empty profession, and friends venial, therefore to trust no one; that all love is a youthful folly, unbecoming the 'full grown man;' therefore to guard against its approaches? This, I should say, is to live and think like the beast that perishes, and to die as the fool dies.
Forty. You were inflated with that exhilarating gas, self-esteem; it is not very pleasant to have it escape, but you will soon be reduced to your own proportions.
Twenty. And you would really have me think that there is no beauty or loveliness in the world? nothing worth hoping or striving for? Because I believed there was, and was filled with enthusiasm in viewing it, you say I was inflated with self-esteem. If I thought as you do, I should contemn myself, and deserve to be despised by every body like myself. You have lost sight of your high destiny, and defiled your soul, which was in the similitude of its Maker, by frequent contact with the earth.
Forty. I was not conscious of that.
Twenty. Tell me, if you please, what was man made for?