account of all that has happened. Divers incidents recurred to him from
which it appears that, at various times in the past, you have been on
the verge of a nervous collapse."

A nervous collapse! What was the use of this term but a euphemism for
insanity?

"Do not despair, dear child," Reginald caressingly remarked. "Your
disorder is not hopeless, not incurable. Such crises come to every man
who writes. It is the tribute we pay to the Lords of Song. The
minnesinger of the past wrote with his heart's blood; but we moderns dip
our pen into the sap of our nerves. We analyse life, love art--and the
dissecting knife that we use on other men's souls finally turns against
ourselves.

"But what shall a man do? Shall he sacrifice art to hygiene and
surrender the one attribute that makes him chiefest of created things?
Animals, too, think. Some walk on two legs. But introspection
differentiates man from the rest. Shall we yield up the sweet
consciousness of self that we derive from the analysis of our emotion,
for the contentment of the bull that ruminates in the shade of a tree or
the healthful stupidity of a mule?"

"Assuredly not."

"But what shall a man do?"

"Ah, that I cannot tell. Mathematics offers definite problems that admit
of a definite solution. Life states its problems with less exactness and
offers for each a different solution. One and one are two to-day and