When Tom Elliott graduated from Harvard, that power of the mind which
is known as reason had become a fetish with him. Every human action,
he argued, should be controlled by it. The majority of people were
largely influenced by their feelings; he, Thomas Elliott, twenty-six,
good-looking, and fairly wealthy, would turn his mental advantages to
good account and be guided wholly by his reason.
He explained his theory to an attractive young woman who had gone out
on the veranda with him. Partly because her mind was too much occupied
with the speaker to comprehend the full purport of his remarks, and
partly because her feminine tact forbade opposition to an unimportant
thing, Miss Marshall nodded her pretty head in entire assent.
"It is an assured fact," he went on, "that all the unhappiness in the
world is caused by the inability to reason. Married life is miserable
just because it is not put on a sensible basis. Any two human beings
capable of reasoning would be happy together, if that point were kept
constantly in view. Perfect, absolute truthfulness, and constant
deductions from it, form the only sure foundation for happiness. Am I
right?"