Looking back over those years it is hard for me to decide whether Norman was the determining element in my thinking, or whether from different angles, by different processes of mind, we reached the same conclusions. Certain it is that many times a conversation with him would precipitate fluid-vague feelings of mine into the definite crystals of intellectual convictions. A talk on this subject—of intentions and results—stands out as clear in my mind as any memory I have of him. It started, I believe, by some jovial effort of his to lift me out of my profound discouragement. We had lit our pipes, Guiseppe was clearing the supper litter from the table. Nina was dividing her attention between a pile of to-be-darned stockings in her lap and Marie, who was safe in her cradle and needed no attention at all. Nina was a constant factor in all our arguments in those days. She was always silent. Much of our talk must have been far above her comprehension, but she would sit on the divan, her feet tucked up under her, and listen for hours on end. Her presence in some subtle way contributed to our discussions. The ancient Egyptians brought a skeleton to their feasts to remind them of death. Nina was to us a symbol of life—a silent chorus of actuality. Some word or look of mine that night showed Norman how desperately serious was my discouragement, and he dropped his flippant tone. "After all intentions don’t justify anything. We must demand results. But what results? When I see a chap, whose efforts I know to be good, get discouraged, I’m sure he’s looking for the wrong kind of results. Of course, our unseen, unintentional influence is much greater than the influence we consciously exert. Some little of it we know about, the greater part we ignore. You’re worried because some of your well-intentioned efforts have gone wrong, because our fight for a reformatory ended in a fizzle. These two cases, you speak of—Jerry and Lipinsky—are on your mind. There are probably dozens of others, just as bad, which you don’t know about. Are they the kind of results on which you have a right to judge your work? I think not. "The one real result of human activity is knowledge. Zola makes a character in ’Travail’ say that science is the only true revolutionist. And if science is something more than dead laboratory data, if it’s live workable human knowledge, a real aid to straight thinking, he is right.