"But I do not
think you will be happy."
"It is not a question of happiness."
"What is it then?"
"Usefulness," said John.
"You do not care to be happy, you only care to be useful?" Joe asked.
"Yes. But my ideas of usefulness include many things. Some of the people
who listen to me would be very much astonished if they knew what I dream."
"Nothing would astonish me," said Joe, thoughtfully. "Of course you must
think of everything in a large way--it is your nature. You will be a great
man."
John looked at his companion. She had struck the main chord of his nature
in her words, and he felt suddenly that thrill of pleasure which comes
from the flattery of our pride and our hopes. John was not a vain man, but
he was capable of being intoxicated by the grandeur of a scheme when the
possibility of its realization was suddenly thrust before him. Like all
men of exceptional gifts who are constantly before the public, he could
estimate very justly the extent of the results he could produce on any
given occasion, but his enthusiastic belief in his ideas could see no
limit to the multiplication of those results.
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