Page:Tales of John Oliver Hobbes.djvu/17

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Some Emotions and a Moral.

Part I.

I.

"Ideals, my dear Golightly, are the root of every evil. When a man forgets his ideals he may hope for happiness, but not till then."

"And if he has none to forget?"

"That he has none to forget," said the first speaker slowly, "simply means that he has not yet been disappointed."

"You think he cannot escape them?"

"I know he cannot. Of course I am speaking of the Thinking Man—not a human machine."

The man who had been addressed as Golightly bent back in his chair, and did not reply immediately. He had a pleasant, rest-giving face—rest-giving in its strong suggestion that he was not the man to underestimate his fellow-creatures, or himself.

"You say that a Thinking Man cannot escape ideals," he said at last, "and yet you add he cannot be happy till he forgets them. Is not that a little hard on the Thinking Man?"

"Is not everything hard on him?" said the other. "Who can use his eyes and not wonder whether it