The conversation soon fell into pairs as they sat.
"I should not have said, at first sight, that you were a very imaginative person, Dr.Claudius," said the Countess.
"I have been dreaming for years," he answered.

"I am a mathematician, and of late I have become a philosopher in a small way, as far as that is possible from reading the subject.

There are no two branches of learning that require more imagination than mathematics and philosophy." "Philosophy, perhaps," she replied, "but mathematics--I thought that was an exact science, where everything was known, and there was no room for dreaming." "I suppose that is the general impression.

But do you think it requires no imagination to conceive a new application of knowledge, to invent new methods where old ones are inadequate, to lay out a route through the unknown land beyond the regions of the known ?" "Ordinary people, like me, associate mathematics with measurement and figures and angles." "Yes," said Claudius, "but it is the same as though you confused religion with its practical results.

If the religion is true at all, it would be just as true if man did not exist, and if it consequently had no application to life." "I understand the truth of that, though we might differ about the word.
So you have been dreaming for years--and what were your dreams like ?" The Countess looked down earnestly at Claudius, who in his turn looked at her with a little smile.