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Meanwhile he got little exercise, indigestion grew with him until it
ruled all his moods, he fattened and deteriorated physically, moods of
distress invaded and darkened his skies, little things irritated him
more and more, and casual laughter ceased in him. His hair began to
come off until he had a large bald space at the back of his head.
Suddenly one day it came to him--forgetful of those books and all he
had lived and seen through them--that he had been in his shop for
exactly fifteen years, that he would soon be forty, and that his life
during that time had not been worth living, that it had been in
apathetic and feebly hostile and critical company, ugly in detail and
mean in scope--and that it had brought him at last to an outlook
utterly hopeless and grey.
III
I have already had occasion to mention, indeed I have quoted, a
certain high-browed gentleman living at Highbury, wearing a golden
pince-nez and writing for the most part in that beautiful room,
the library of the Reform Club. There he wrestles with what he calls
"
social problems" in a bloodless but at times, I think one must admit,
an extremely illuminating manner. He has a fixed idea that something
called a "collective intelligence" is wanted in the world, which means
in practice that you and I and everyone have to think about things
frightfully hard and pool the results, and oblige ourselves to be
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