When I was talking about dying young, and burning up one’s talent with verve, and without inhibition, I meant also to say this — that there is, if one wanted it, even a religious justification for this kind of life, insofar as what is wanted of a soul is not so much that it be ‘good,’ in some moralistic sense, as that it be fervent, and that it live life all the way up, and not vanish into some tepid existence, where comfort and avoidance of conflict, or pain, are all that seem to matter.