ay; I was as simple as a blade of grass.

For a year I didn't write a word. I had the courage to wait for the real
thing, nobody pestering me to be a "genius"! Some day you may read that
first book. People said I had re-discovered the virtue of humility. I had.

THE BOY

I will read it! And how much more it will mean to me now!

THE MAN

I suppose you know the theory about vibrations--how if a little push is
given a bridge, and repeated often enough at the right intervals, the
bridge will fall?

THE BOY

Yes.

THE MAN

Well, that's the whole secret of what you have been looking for--what you
found in my poems.

THE BOY

I don't understand.

THE MAN

A man's life is a rhythm. Eating, sleeping, working, playing, loving,
thinking--everything. And when we live so that each activity comes at the
right interval, we gain power. When one interrupts another, we lose.
Weakness is merely the thrust of one impulse against another, instead of
their combined thrust against the world. When I came here, feeling like a
criminal, I was obeying the one right instinct in a welter of emotions. It
was like the faintest of heart beats in a sick body. I listened to that.
Then I learned physical hunger, then sleep, and so on. It's incredible how
stupid I was about the elemental art of living! I had to begin all over
from the beginning, as if no one had ever lived before.

THE BOY

That's what you meant in your poems about religion.

THE MAN

Exactly! I learned that "good" is the rhythm of the man's personal nature,
and that "evil" is merely the confusion of the same impulses. As time
went on it became instinctive to live for and by the rhythm. Everything
about my life here was caught up and used in the vision of power--drawing
water, cutting wood, digging in the garden, dawn. It was all marvelous--I
couldn't help writing those poems. They are the natural joys and sorrows
of ten years. As a matter of fact, though, I grew to care less and less
about writing, as living became fuller and richer. People write too much.
They would write less if they had to make the fire in the morning.

THE BOY

The first impulse ... I see. Oh, life might be so simple!

THE MAN

Why not? The animals have it. Men have it at times, but we make each other
forget. If we could only be each other's reminders instead of forgetters!

THE BOY

Yes! But I see the only thing to do is to go away, like you.

THE MAN

Not necessarily, I was mere