Lisp's Compromise

•  1. The elegance of Lisp, is precisely the terseness of notation, in executing self-evaluation.
• 2. This is cute, which is to say it is appealing to human minds, because it is simple, thus saving memory ( space  ).
• 3. So far, it seems that the trade-off for this is a floor on the speed of evaluation ( time ). 
• 4. I am trying to convince myself that there is all there is to this, if so then I'll temporarily throw Lisp studies away, to focus on more pressing matters.