"Charity, having spent, I must admit, very nearly twenty years--beginning, let us say, with the year I commenced study at Harvard, the which was the thirteenth year of my life--having spent so much time, I say, in what would seem, to some, a most arid employment, namely the cultivation of the abstract, the exploration (tentative, limited by the frailty of mine own poor powers) of the borders of philosophy--having spent thus much time in--shall I call it, perhaps, a sanctuary of loneliness?--not altogether unrewarding, you understand; not without the consolation of the poets; not without an occasional satisfaction, like unto discovery, within the region of the inquiry: nevertheless, out of such loneliness--out of----" "Sir----" "Nay, forgive me, Charity, I'm most clumsy with words, and could never speak bold and plain what's in my mind, the which plain speaking I do much admire to discover in others, but let me essay it. Having spent, I say, almost twenty years, yes, almost a full score in the--I must call it the dust of scholarship, save the mark--one may then, suddenly as it were, look out as through the window of a study, let us say, and observe that outside this not altogether despicable refuge there is--oh, spring perhaps, as it is even now, my dear--and one may presume to hope that one hath not remained so long out of the world, nor grown so old, but that--but that----" "Mr. Hibbs, I pray you----" "Not so old but that perhaps one who is truly at the very brightest beginning of the springtime might find--might find in one's maturer years--oh, nothing like the call of youth to youth, my God! but--but.... You have not known how I--how since you began coming here in so much kindness--I think you have not known----"