Now, see: Isn't that enough?
Can't you let him off now?
He wants to write, and how do you know that he couldn't do it if you gave him a chance?
How do you know he hasn't some message--something to say that might make the world just a little bit happier or wiser?
He MIGHT--in time--it's a possibility not to be denied.

Now he can't deliver any message if he goes down there with you, and he won't HAVE any to deliver.

I don't say going down with you is likely to injure his health, as I thought the shop would, and as the shop did, the first time.

I'm not speaking as doctor now, anyhow.

But I tell you one thing I know: if you take him down there you'll kill something that I feel is in him, and it's finer, I think, than his physical body, and you'll kill it deader than a door-nail! And so why not let it live?
You've about come to the end of your string, old fellow.