"You mean to say that you have burnt _The Last Struggle_--the poem
you told us about the other night?"

"Yes, I felt I could not reconcile its teaching, or I should say the
tendency of its teaching, to my religion. I do not regret--besides, I
had to do it; I felt I was going off my head. I should have gone mad.
I have been through agonies. I could not think. Thought and pain and
trouble were as one in my brain. I heard voices.... I had to do it.
And now a great calm has come. I feel much better."

"You are a curious chap."

Then at the end of a long silence John said, as if he wished to
change the conversation--

"Even though I did burn my pessimistic poem, the world will not go
without one. You are writing a poem on Schopenhauer's philosophy.
It is hard to associate pessimism with you."

"Only because you take the ordinary view of the tendency of
pessimistic teaching," said Mike. "If you want a young and laughing
world, preach Schopenhauer at every street corner; if you want a
sober utilitarian world, preach Comte."

"Doesn't much matter what the world is as long as it is not sober,"
chuckled Platt, the paragraph-writing youth at the bottom of the
table.

"Hold your tongue!" cried Drake, and he lighted another cigarette
preparatory to fixing his whole attention on the paradox that Mike