'
"'The Gospel of Progress--that is our opium; it gives deep sleep and
sweet dreams. It is the most powerful of drugs. When a man takes it
once he takes it again, for it tempts him with the prospect of its
dreams.'
"'I shall not taste of it,' said I, 'for I prize Truth above all
dreams. What other narcotics have you, sleep-inducing?'
"My companion paused a moment, then replied:
"' There are two sovereign remedies for the relief of your sorrow, a
life of work, or a life of pleasure. But work needs to be done under
the influence of the Gospel of Progress. Without a belief in progress,
man cannot believe that work is prayer, and that God is a taskmaster.
His soul wakes up. He commits suicide or crime. Or he deserts the
city, and goes, as you have done, up into the mountains.'
"'One narcotic helps out the other,' I hazarded.
"'Quite so. Pleasure is the alternative remedy, a perfectly delightful
substitute for your life: wine, the theatre, art, women. But as in
taking laudanum, one must graduate the doses--take too much and you
are poisoned--'
"'Wine,' I said. 'I have heard of it. It has been praised by the
poets, and its service is that it makes one forget! The theatre, its
comedies and farces and cunning amusements all designed to help me to
forget! Art with its seductions is to obsess the soul with foreign
thoughts! Women who languish upon one's eyes and tempt with their
beauties, they also would steal away our memories.
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