If you were not drunk, you might perhaps catch
a gleam of philosophy in this."
"And if you had not both feet on that fascinating Aquilina, whose
heavy breathing suggests an analogy with the sounds of a storm about
to burst," replied Emile, absently engaged in the harmless amusement
of winding and unwinding Euphrasia's hair, "you would be ashamed of
your inebriated garrulity. Both your systems can be packed in a
phrase, and reduced to a single idea. The mere routine of living
brings a stupid kind of wisdom with it, by blunting our intelligence
with work; and on the other hand, a life passed in the limbo of the
abstract or in the abysses of the moral world, produces a sort of
wisdom run mad. The conditions may be summed up in brief; we may
extinguish emotion, and so live to old age, or we may choose to die
young as martyrs to contending passions. And yet this decree is at
variance with the temperaments with which we were endowed by the
bitter jester who modeled all creatures."
"Idiot!" Raphael burst in. "Go on epitomizing yourself after that
fashion, and you will fill volumes. If I attempted to formulate those
two ideas clearly, I might as well say that man is corrupted by the
exercise of his wits, and purified by ignorance.
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