Is there any sense in avoidance? Any reason to dodge the inevitably drawn countenance of death? If not —if she comes all the same— then is there any sense in avoiding the warm sun that shines on her face along with the gloom of her latter days? Forgone light to spite the dark, the dark ever-coming; is this not simply a denial of goodness? What is gained? A lack of risk? An extended youth? Is youth not for the risking? And trust—you say you cannot trust. Trust this: you will have no one you do not trust. And they will not have you. And the world will have less of itself for all this mistrusting. But trust is to be broken, you say. Trust may well be for the breaking; but the sweetness in hope—what of that? You’d give that up too? No youth, no trust, no hope—and to rob sweetness of the world also?: Hell on earth that is. Let us not even speak then, of love.