Three quietly active points of light showed the location of his
listeners. Gloria was now half sitting, half lying, in Anthony's lap.
His arm was around her so tightly that she could hear the beating of his
heart. Richard Caramel, perched on the apple-barrel, from time to time
stirred and gave off a faint grunt.

"I grew up then, into this land of jazz, and fell immediately into a
state of almost audible confusion. Life stood over me like an immoral
schoolmistress, editing my ordered thoughts. But, with a mistaken faith
in intelligence, I plodded on. I read Smith, who laughed at charity and
insisted that the sneer was the highest form of self-expression--but
Smith himself replaced charity as an obscurer of the light. I read
Jones, who neatly disposed of individualism--and behold! Jones was still
in my way. I did not think--I was a battle-ground for the thoughts of
many men; rather was I one of those desirable but impotent countries
over which the great powers surge back and forth.

"I reached maturity under the impression that I was gathering the
experience to order my life for happiness. Indeed, I accomplished the
not unusual feat of solving each question in my mind long before it
presented itself to me in life--and of being beaten and bewildered
just the same.

"But after a few tastes of this latter dish I had had enough. Here! I
said, Experience is not worth the getting. It's not a thing that happens
pleasantly to a passive you--it's a wall that an active you runs up
against. So I wrapped myself in what I thought was my invulnerable
scepticism and decided that my education was complete. But it was too
late. Protect myself as I might by making no new ties with tragic and
predestined humanity, I was lost with the rest. I had traded the fight