"Well, I may be wrong, but my notion is that what systematizes a life
is choice; and choice, I believe, means choice of what we hold to be
good."

"Surely not! Surely we may choose what we hold to be bad."

"I doubt it"

"But how then do you account for what you call bad men?"

"I should say they are men who choose what I think bad but they think
good."

"But are there not men who deliberately choose what they think bad,
like Milton's Satan--'Evil be thou my Good'?"

"Yes, but by the very terms of the expression he was choosing what he
thought good; only he thought that evil was good."

"But that is a contradiction."

"Yes, it is the contradiction in which he was involved, and in which I
believe everyone is involved who chooses, as you say, the Bad. To them
it is not only bad, it is somehow also good."

"Does that apply to Nero, for example?"

"Yes, I think it very well might; the things which he chose, power and
wealth and the pleasures of the senses, he chose because he thought
them good; if his choice also involved what he thought bad, such as