"I'm going away to-morrow--for a very long while--and I want to tell you, before I go, that you're a saint, a heroine. Did books mean so much to you? And you decided to work instead of going to college? Books?" He grabbed one from the table and hurled it violently across the room. "Books? They are only paper and ink and dead men's thoughts. Truth and wisdom don't come from books. They can't teach you those things in college. Yes. I've had books all my life. I live with them." He stamped up and down and shook his fists at the unoffending shelves. "If I know anything Real, if I've got the smallest grain of wisdom, I didn't get it from them. There's only one teacher--that's Life, and before you can learn you've got to suffer. I don't know much because things have been easy for me. How old are you? Nineteen? Well, I'm over thirty. You talk about getting down on your knees to me! Good God! I've ten years start and every advantage, but I don't know--Capital K-N-O-W--as much as you. And good? I ought to ask your pardon for kissing your hands. I'm _no_ good! God! I want to break something!" He looked around savagely for something which would make a great noise. But he suddenly changed his mind, and pulling up a chair to the window-seat, where Yetta was sitting bolt upright, he began again in a quieter tone. "Yetta, I'm a lazy, self-indulgent imbecile. I've never done anything in all my life that I didn't want to do. I've never sacrificed anything for any cause, not my easy-chairs, nor my pipe, nor my good meals, nothing. Nothing but automobiles and yachts which I didn't want. God gave me a brain which I am too lazy to use. And besides my general uselessness and selfish waste, I'm a coward. Why am I going off to Persia? Is it because I think it will ever do anybody any good, ever make life sweeter or finer for any one, to have me decipher the picture puzzles of the people who worshipped that stupid-faced cow on the mantelpiece? No. I'm not that foolish. Is it because I don't know what I might do, if I was as wise as you are--wise enough to know that we must give our lives to win our souls? No! I know that just as well as you do, Yetta. But I'm a coward. I'm running away, because I'm afraid of life." He jumped up again and began to pace the room. "Oh, well!" he groaned. "Enough heroics for one afternoon. But don't let books hypnotize you, Yetta. Schopenhauer said once that the learning of the West crumples up against the wisdom of the East like a leaden bullet against a stone wall. There's nothing in books but 'learning.' And you've got some of the Eastern wisdom, Yetta. It's part of your Semitic heritage. Treasure it. Don't ever let books come between you and your intimacy with life. One pulse beat of a live heart is worth all the printed words in a thousand books. I--" But he interrupted himself and sat down gloomily and looked out over Yetta--who had curled up once more--at the budding green tree tops of Washington Square.