"My theory meets that case,
I assure you! A never finds out that it is rubbish, but maunders on to
the end, trying to believe he's enjoying himself. B quietly shuts the
book, when he's read a dozen pages, walks off to the Library, and
changes it for a better! I have yet another theory for adding to the
enjoyment of Life--that is, if I have not exhausted your patience?
I'm afraid you find me a very garrulous old man."
"No indeed!" I exclaimed earnestly. And indeed I felt as if one could
not easily tire of the sweet sadness of that gentle voice.
"It is, that we should learn to take our pleasures quickly, and our
pains slowly."
"But why? I should have put it the other way, myself."
"By taking artificial pain--which can be as trivial as you
please--slowly, the result is that, when real pain comes, however
severe, all you need do is to let it go at its ordinary pace, and it's
over in a moment!"
"Very true," I said, "but how about the pleasure?"
"Why, by taking it quick, you can get so much more into life. It takes
you three hours and a half to hear and enjoy an opera. Suppose I can
take it in, and enjoy it, in half-an-hour. Why, I can enjoy seven
operas, while you are listening; to one!"
"Always supposing you have an orchestra capable of playing them,"
I said. "And that orchestra has yet to be found!"
The old man smiled. "I have heard an 'air played," he said, "and by no
means a short one--played right through, variations and all, in three
seconds!"
"When? And how?" I asked eagerly, with a half-notion that I was
dreaming again.
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