Do you notice that maniacs mostly
try either to destroy other things, or (if they are thoughtful)
to destroy themselves? The madman is the man behind the scenes,
like the man that wanders about the coulisse of a theater.
He has only opened the wrong door and come into the right place.
He sees things at the right angle. But the common world--'
"`Oh, hang the common world!' said the sullen Smith, letting his fist
fall on the table in an idle despair.
"`Let's give it a bad name first,' said the Professor calmly,
`and then hang it. A puppy with hydrophobia would probably struggle
for life while we killed it; but if we were kind we should kill it.
So an omniscient god would put us out of our pain.
He would strike us dead.'
"`Why doesn't he strike us dead?' asked the undergraduate abstractedly,
plunging his hands into his pockets.
"`He is dead himself,' said the philosopher; `that is where
he is really enviable.'
"`To any one who thinks,' proceeded Eames, `the pleasures of life,
trivial and soon tasteless, are bribes to bring us into a torture chamber.
We all see that for any thinking man mere extinction is the... What
are you doing?... Are you mad?... Put that thing down.
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