I cannot discover
even a general direction. Much more am I like a taxi-cab in which all
sorts of aims and desires have travelled to their destination and got
out. Are we all like that?"
"A bundle held together by a name and address and a certain thread of
memory?" said the doctor and considered. "More than that. More than
that. We have leading ideas, associations, possessions, liabilities."
"We build ourselves a prison of circumstances that keeps us from
complete dispersal."
"Exactly," said the doctor. "And there is also something, a consistency,
that we call character."
"It changes."
"Consistently with itself."
"I have been trying to recall my sexual history," said Sir Richmond,
going off at a tangent. "My sentimental education. I wonder if it
differs very widely from yours or most men's."
"Some men are more eventful in these matters than others," said the
doctor,--it sounded--wistfully.
"They have the same jumble of motives and traditions, I suspect, whether
they are eventful or not. The brakes may be strong or weak but the drive
is the same. I can't remember much of the beginnings of curiosity and
knowledge in these matters. Can you?"
"Not much," said the doctor. "No."
"Your psychoanalysts tell a story of fears, suppressions, monstrous
imaginations, symbolic replacements.
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