"
He took himself off with a bow, and I gazed blankly at Amroth. "The
conversation of that very polite person," I said, "is like a bad dream!
What is this extraordinarily depressing place? Shall I have to undergo a
course here?"
"No, my dear boy," said Amroth. "This is rather out of your depth. But I
am somewhat disappointed at your view of the situation. Surely these are
all very important matters? Your disposition is, I am afraid, incurably
frivolous! How could people be more worthily employed than in getting
rid of the last traces of intellectual error, and in referring
everything to its actual origin? Did not your heart burn within you at
his luminous exposition? I had always thought you a boy of intellectual
promise."
"Amroth," I said, "I will not be made fun of. This is the most dreadful
place I have ever seen or conceived of! It frightens me. The dryness of
pure science is terrifying enough, but after all that has a kind of
strange beauty, because it deals either with transcendental ideas of
mathematical relation, or with the deducing of principle from
accumulated facts. But here the object appears to be to eliminate the
human element from humanity.
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