“Then why do we live so?” cried one youth. “Why do we do what we ourselves do not approve? Have we not the power over our own lives? We ourselves are conscious that our luxury, our effeminacy, our wealth, and especially our pride⁠—our separation from our brethren⁠—are our ruin. In order to be important and rich we must deprive ourselves of everything that gives man joy in living; we crowd ourselves into cities, we make ourselves effeminate, we ruin our constitutions; and notwithstanding all our diversion, we die of ennui and of disgust because our lives are not what they ought to be.