“Why not be happy?” That is, why not abandon the plane of exasperation and restlessness, and be content with the approximations and self-deceptions of the majority? Well, of course happiness of that sort is not within my grasp, if I wished it. But why expect from _you_ a perpetual discipline? That discipline is however, at least as easy for you as for me, if you think of it. The serenity and ease with which you accomplish the most gruesome self-restraints at first surprised me—until I remembered that you did not take them seriously, like me, or suffer from their necessity. Not having a sense of values (very roughly a masculine corner) but only the complacency of an obedient mummer, you cover the harshest ground with Spartan face. It is only when you are left alone that you complain or question seriously. You forget a little the intricacies of our ceremonial dance, and find that worrying. Don’t be offended at what I have been saying. You need not be ashamed of being calmly hypnotic. Yorke was older than you when he was born. We should all be mad if our mothers did not invigorate us with the airs of a twinkling, early and sweet world, and feed us with a remote “happiness.” You want more “happiness,” though, for your child. Why? I would not be anything but what I am (unless I could find something “unhappier”) and why should _he_, in the future, wish to be anything but what I think he will become? There is an intoxication in the vistas of effort and self-castigation which cannot be bought with “happiness.” Again you might say, “_Why_ be so hard on this person or on that, and not accept him as a “good fellow,” or take him at the valuation of the world, and derive amusement and sentimental satisfaction from him, Richards, Hepburn, Tom, Mrs. Fisher Wake etc., etc. They have all been “quarrelled with.” That is, I have not been civil, and we do not see them. But I have left you a Menu of equally amusing birds to while away life with. You would have quarrelled with the first lot in time and in due course on unreasonable grounds, if I had not forestalled you. I have merely done the job cleanly and reasonably. _Clean_ is not the word, you argue, for this cold-blooded process. It is not veiled in the forms and frenzies of life, but indecently done before people shocked into attention. The intellect is cruel and repugnant. Dirty, that is. (Everything loathesome is related to dirt). I am attributing a line of argument to you and a tone, which your questions do not warrant. But I am taking them to their ultimate development. I must always do this, c’est mon mal et mon gloire.