Philip Curtiss

“ For that matter, why don't you buy it outright?"
"Wha-at?" demanded Bellsmith.
"Why don't you buy the whole show?" repeated the doctor, quietly. "What under heaven is there to prevent you? You are not an actor, as you say. You are not a manager, but you have money. If you will pardon my saying so, it is the one thing that you have got that is of interest to other men. It is your natural wedge for entering active life. ”

“ The doctor acknowledged the sally only by a tightening of the little lines at the ends of his eyes, but Bellsmith pursued. "How do other people get interested in things? Most of them seem to be highly thrilled about something or other."
"That," answered the doctor, repaying him in his own coin, "is about as foolish a question as I ever heard, especially from you. Other people get interested in things by getting involved so deeply that they can't get out. They get in little by little. Necessity draws them in and then ties knots around them. ”

“ Their money, their honor, their ambitions or their affections get so deeply involved in something that they can't let go, if they want to. They have got to be interested, because they have so much at stake. There are few active people in this world who do not find themselves, every day of their lives, in some corner so tight that the only way that they can get out is by staying in. ”

“ Can you picture boredom under such circumstances?"
"No," laughed Bellsmith. "Then your advice is to go around throwing myself in front of wild animals or locomotives, simply to escape being bored?"
"Is n't that just about what most young men in your circumstances do?" answered the doctor. "Why else do they own racing-cars and aëroplanes and hunt big game and usually get smashed up in the end?"
"Because they like those things in the first place," retorted Bellsmith, "and I don't."
The doctor shook his head sadly. "Mr. Bellsmith, you are the most hopeless patient I ever had. ”

“ No, I mean as a general proposition—temperamentally, socially, economically, whatever you want to call it."
"I think it would be a very good thing for Miss Marshall," answered the doctor, dryly.
"Does that answer the question?" asked Bellsmith, thoughtfully.
"As far as I'd care to answer it," replied the doctor.
There was naturally a silence for a moment, and then the doctor added:
"But even that would n't solve your problem forever, not even for as long as you'd think. I can't see why a fussy little married man would be your ambition any more than a fussy little single one." ”

“ If you wish to call it common sense, human nature, or intuitive, logical thought, any psychiatrist will meet you more than half-way, and you will find that you and the medical profession have an amazing amount in common. ”

“ I mean most of those who become fit subjects for my profession. With them, following the line of the least resistance means following the line of the greatest pleasure, gratifying every desire as soon as it occurs, throwing themselves into profligacy.
"Your case is the exact opposite. You have a natural sensitiveness which precludes anything of that kind. But what that sensitiveness has also done has been to cause you to draw away instinctively whenever anything offered the least rebuff, the least complication, the smallest unpleasant suggestion. ”