Ultrick

What does it all mean?” I said.
“A good question!” he rejoined: “nobody knows what anything is; a man can learn only what a thing means! Whether he do, depends on the use he is making of it.”
“I have made no use of anything yet!”
“Not much; but you know the fact, and that is something! Most people take more than a lifetime to learn that they have learned nothing, and done less! At least you have not been without the desire to be of use!”
…
“I am ready to believe whatever you tell me — as soon as I understand what it means.”
“Had you accepted our invitation, you would have known the right way. When a man will not act where he is, he must go far to find his work.”
“Indeed I have gone far, and got nowhere, for I have not found my work! I left the children to learn how to serve them, and have only learned the danger they are in.”
“When you were with them, you were where you could help them: you left your work to look for it! It takes a wise man to know when to go away; a fool may learn to go back at once!”
“Do you mean, sir, I could have done something for the Little Ones by staying with them?”
“Could you teach them anything by leaving them?”
“No; but how could I teach them? I did not know how to begin. Besides, they were far ahead of me!”
…
“You might have removed some of the hindrances to their growing!”
“What are they? I do not know them. I did think perhaps it was the want of water!”
“Of course it is! they have none to cry with!”
“I would gladly have kept them from requiring any for that purpose!”
“No doubt you would — the aim of all stupid philanthropists! Why, Mr. Vane, but for the weeping in it, your world would never have become worth saving! You confess you thought it might be water they wanted: why did not you dig them a well or two?”
“That never entered my mind!”
“Not when the sounds of the waters under the earth entered your ears?”
…
“I fear what you say is true, Mr. Raven! But indeed I was afraid that more knowledge might prove an injury to them — render them less innocent, less lovely.”
“They had given you no reason to harbour such a fear!”
“Is not a little knowledge a dangerous thing?”
“That is one of the pet falsehoods of your world! Is man’s greatest knowledge more than a little? or is it therefore dangerous? The fancy that knowledge is in itself a great thing, would make any degree of knowledge more dangerous than any amount of ignorance. To know all things would not be greatness.”
“At least it was for love of them, not from cowardice that I served the giants!”
“…You lost your chance with the LOvers, Mr. Vane! You speculated about them instead of helping them!