into my future plans? Give me your advice as a cool-headed outsider."

Overman was silent a moment.

"Well, Frank, now you've put the question squarely, I'm going
to be candid. I'm alarmed about you. The strain on your nerves is
too great. This maggot of Socialism in your brain is the trouble.
It is the mark of mental and moral breakdown, the fleeing from
self-reliant individual life into the herd for help. You call it
'brotherhood,' the 'solidarity of the race.' Sentimental mush. It's
a stampede back to the animal herd out of which a powerful manhood
has been evolved. This idea is destroying your will, your brain, your
religion, and will finally sap the moral fiber of your character.
It is the greatest sentimentalist."

Gordon grunted.

"It's funny how you have the faculty of putting the opposition in
terms of its last absurdity."

"Grunt if you like; I'm in dead earnest. You want to put on the
brakes. You've struck the down grade. Socialism takes the temper
out of the steel fiber of character. It makes a man flabby. It is
the earmark of racial degeneracy. The man of letters who is poisoned
by it never writes another line worth reading; the preacher who
tampers with it ends a materialist or atheist; the philanthropist
bitten by it, from just a plain fool, develops a madman; while the
home-builder turns free-lover and rake under its teachings."

"You're a beauty to grieve over the loss to the world of home-builders!"