something I had got out of a now forgotten writer called Ruskin,
a volcano of beautiful language and nonsensical suggestions, who
prevailed very greatly with eloquent excitable young men in those
days. Something it was about the insignificance of science and the
supreme importance of Life. Parload stood listening, half turned
towards the sky with the tips of his fingers on his spectroscope.
He seemed to come to a sudden decision.

"No. I don't agree with you, Leadford," he said. "You don't understand
about science."

Parload rarely argued with that bluntness of opposition. I was so
used to entire possession of our talk that his brief contradiction
struck me like a blow. "Don't agree with me!" I repeated.

"No," said Parload

"But how?"

"I believe science is of more importance than socialism," he said.
"Socialism's a theory. Science--science is something more."

And that was really all he seemed to be able to say.

We embarked upon one of those queer arguments illiterate young men
used always to find so heating. Science or Socialism? It was, of
course, like arguing which is right, left handedness or a taste for
onions, it was altogether impossible opposition. But the range of
my rhetoric enabled me at last to exasperate Parload, and his mere
repudiation of my conclusions sufficed to exasperate me, and we