The
probability is that this wouldn't matter, if only I could live on
in peace of mind; I should recover my equilibrium, and perhaps
once more understand myself. But the due course of things is
troubled by my poverty.'
He spoke in a slow, meditative way, in a monotonous voice, and
without raising his eyes from the ground.
'I can understand,' put in Jasper, 'that there may be
philosophical truth in all this. All the same, it's a great pity
that you should occupy your mind with such thoughts.'
'A pity--no! I must remain a reasoning creature. Disaster may end
by driving me out of my wits, but till then I won't abandon my
heritage of thought.'
'Let us have it out, then. You think it was a mistake to spend
those months abroad?'
'A mistake from the practical point of view. That vast broadening
of my horizon lost me the command of my literary resources. I
lived in Italy and Greece as a student, concerned especially with
the old civilisations; I read little but Greek and Latin. That
brought me out of the track I had laboriously made for myself I
often thought with disgust of the kind of work I had been doing;
my novels seemed vapid stuff so wretchedly and shallowly modern.
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