human
You might tell me a great deal and make many things clear to me, if you would.
gpt
Yes, said I,
human
I am pretty well fit for that,--and for nothing else--an old man like me.
gpt
It is not so much for myself; I should be quite content to dream about past times, and if I could not idealise them, yet at least idealise some of the people who lived in them. But I think sometimes people are too careless of the history of the past--too apt to leave it in the hands of old learned men like Hammond. Who knows? Happy as we are, times may alter; we may be bitten with some impulse towards change, and many things may seem too wonderful for us to resist, too exciting not to catch at, if we do not know that they are but phases of what has been before; and withal ruinous, deceitful, and sordid.
human
Not for myself alone, dear friend; I shall have children; perhaps before the end a good many;--I hope so. And though of course I cannot force any special kind of knowledge upon them, yet, my Friend, I cannot help thinking that just as they might be like me in body, so I might impress upon them some part of my ways of thinking; that is, indeed, some of the essential part of myself; that part which was not mere moods, created by the matters and events round about me. What do you think?