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84 dominating idea. Life will become, my good sir, not a drama, but an epic! You will understand that the developing of such a science is no child's undertaking. Just as a bee gathers honey from various flowers, so must I gather knowledge from all other sciences, press out their honey for the sweetening and ennobling of the life of man. I must distribute light and shade with skill, in order to create a beautiful and harmonious ideal of human existence.”

I confined myself merely to a shrug of the shoulders in reply to this daring thinking. Walter paid no attention to it and went on:

“As a usual thing man is unhapyjust 1 "p" in "unhapy" in the original text [sic] because he is dissatisfied with his lot in life. Imagination pictures happiness always as something in the distance, but which does not exist in the present. If he ever succeeds in reaching this dreamed of realization, he finds that it is not what he thought it was. As a result, he becomes bitter and disillusioned, and then, in revenge, he begins to run after some fresh phantom of happiness—some gayer butterfly of joy—which in turn likewise becomes colorless and dull under the touch of his fingers.