You, with your kaldane brain and your rykor
body, never could hope to achieve in the same degree of
perfection those things that I can achieve. Development of the
brain should not be the sum total of human endeavor. The richest
and happiest peoples will be those who attain closest to
well-balanced perfection of both mind and body, and even these
must always be short of perfection. In absolute and general
perfection lies stifling monotony and death. Nature must have
contrasts; she must have shadows as well as highlights; sorrow
with happiness; both wrong and right; and sin as well as virtue."
"Always have I been taught differently," replied Ghek; "but since
I have known this woman and you, of another race, I have come to
believe that there may be other standards fully as high and
desirable as those of the kaldanes. At least I have had a glimpse
of the thing you call happiness and I realize that it may be good
even though I have no means of expressing it. I cannot laugh nor
smile, and yet within me is a sense of contentment when this
woman sings--a sense that seems to open before me wondrous vistas
of beauty and unguessed pleasure that far transcend the cold joys
of a perfectly functioning brain.
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