Absalom, Absalom!

And if you haven't got honor and pride, then nothing matters. Only there is something in you that doesn't care about honor and pride yet that lives, that even walks backward for a whole year just to live; that probably even when this is over and there is not even defeat left, will still decline to sit still in the sun and die, but will be back out in the woods, moving and seeking where just will and endurance could not move it, grubbing for roots and such--the old mindless sentient undreaming meat that doesn't even know any difference between despair and victory, Henry.

(bio)