CHAPTER III 



THE KILLING OF MARMION 



MY doctor having succeeded in exiling me 

 and my eight-year-old heir to what he 

 called &quot; the recuperative wilderness,&quot; sent 

 me occasionally a tart reminder of the wholesome- 

 ness and beauty of the process I was undergoing. 

 He is a delightful megatherium of an extinct 

 school, and his corrective bellowings, muffled by 

 distance, afforded me much amusement in my 

 solitude, and doubtless much edifying precept. 



&quot; Isolation,&quot; he wrote me, &quot;is the balm of life, 

 and it is better for the constitution than the spice 

 of variety. If I had the power, I would provide 

 unpadded cells for society and shove the gayest 

 of its votaries into them regularly, and turn the 

 key on them, merely to increase the average of 

 human life. I am more and more convinced 

 that the Frenchman was right who said that 

 progress is a disease, and eventually society will 

 die of civilization. It is fast losing the power 



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