That
discovery happened to me when I was in Morocco with my father, who died
there--no matter how--among those whom he liked to believe were his own
people: my mother had died long before. I had considerable wealth at my
command, and I began to live at the height of all my faculties; I lived
in every nerve, and at every pore.
"And then I began to perceive a reverse to the bounteous beauty and the
overflowing life of Nature,--a threatening quality, a devouring faculty
in her by which she fed the joyous abundance of her life. I saw that all
activity, all the pleasant palpitation and titillation in the life of
Nature and of Man, merely means that one living thing is feeding upon or
is feeding another. I began to perceive that all the interest of life
centres in this alter-devouring principle. I discovered, moreover, this
strange point,--that the joy of life is in direct proportion to the
rapidity with which we lose or surrender life."
"Yes," said Lefevre, "the giving of pleasure is always more exquisite
and satisfactory than the getting it."
"I lost life," continued Julius, without noting Lefevre's remark,--"I
lost life,--vital force, nervous ether, electricity, whatever you choose
to call it,--at an enormous rate, but I as quickly replenished my loss.
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