Some months since three friends met together in an old-fashioned
bookshop on the venerable Calle del Olivo--a writer, a printer, and
myself.
"Fifteen years ago all three of us were anarchists," remarked the
printer.
"What are we today?" I inquired.
"We are conservatives," replied the man who wrote. "What are you?"
"I believe that I have the same ideas I had then."
"You have not developed if that is so," retorted the writer with a show
of scorn.
I should like to develop, but into what? How? Where am I to find the
way?
When sitting beside the chimney, warming your feet by the fire as you
watch the flames, it is easy to imagine that there may be novel walks to
explore in the neighbourhood; but when you come to look at the map you
find that there is nothing new in the whole countryside.
We are told that ambition means growth. It does not with me. Ortega y
Gasset believes that I am a man who is constitutionally unbribable. I
should not go so far as to say that, but I do say that I do not believe
that I could be bribed in cold blood by the offer of material things. If
Mephistopheles wishes to purchase my soul, he cannot do it with a
decoration or with a title; but if he were to offer me sympathy, and be
a little effusive while he is about it, adding then a touch of
sentiment, I am convinced that he could get away with it quite easily.