To-morrow?

ED! rej

hanically up and down the length of the dining-room, a rage o

lf's work flung away-simply flung away, and I am no nearer recogn

and glanced again through t

undertake its publication, owing to the open way in which you express y

tyle, and his regret that your unmistakably brilliant genius shou

ver my face, and my teet

hing! rejection f

momentary gratification to a man less certain, less absolut

keen disappointment. Brilliant genius! I read

all the blood in my system, that filled, till they seemed buoyant, every cell of m

led gifted, tired of hearing reiterated b

y and constantly offered to us, and I cared now simp

ere, at six and twenty, I was still unknown, unrecognized, obsc

grants us a merciful cessation of all desire, but the longings of the mind are infinite, absolutely without limit and without period; and where a physical desire, ungratified, must eventually destroy itself as it wears

e talent independent of work, and who are too lazy to throw into words and commit to paper the brillian

be offered that celebrated sweet condition of the

thing but dust, and there were times when

ratively no labour to me. The mechanical work of emb

o me as natural

ompleted, submitted to various publishers, and returned with thanks, with c

onument of unrequited labour, an unrealised capital, a silent testimony

as not handicapped by poverty, as so many authors are. The

blisher to accept my MSS.

velist who treats poverty and genius as convertible terms, makin

was an unrecognised author, I was not living in a garret, nor writing my MSS. by the

rp, as any attic-dwelling genius' could have been, even if we suppose

because more absolute, more

o traditionally patient wife to look sadly at me, no resp

desires for myse

ything, to be everything in itself, but the moments when this

t be traced to distinct motives; it did not spri

ile I lived, and I certainly had no se

e tremendous impetus towards production that is an integral part of all conceptive capacity. The same driving necessity that compels a writer in the middle of the night to rise and take his pen and commit to paper some thought or thoughts that are racing about i

ral, as innate, as independent of the individu

as thus

se of this, that, or the other. I was simply dominated by the instinct

rebuff, and it seemed to rage about in

e fire blazed to the glass-panelled sideboard at the other end, where its reflection spark

the enterer, on hearing my exclamation, promptly drew it to

the b

want, Simmo

was told to enqui

l, I

r. Hilton said was y

nd, Simmonds,

sir, in th

gave orders he was

ty and muddy to go scrimmaging over the hou

to be tied up,

ember, if he comes in wet and muddy, and choos

ed, and I walked

ratching and whining outside the doo

ace furiously, and scratched en

es suffered from his demonstrativeness, but his feelings were of more import

off with which he had been chained up,-a

t back,

said, l

d your last, eh?

sent it? How did you

y dear boy," ans

s knock you up still. You mu

cutting,

omed to anything that is agains

ural law of things that so brilliant a geniu

"Just so,"

not take your estimati

courage. I have the courage to write things they have not the courage to print. There i

something that they will accept? Why no

f ironical smile, and said nothing. It is so hard to expl

ristic is invariably but im

nnot re

feel inclined to enter then into an abstruse discus

ne talent, whether artist or author or poet, or wh

up som

ns! What an

he a nursery maid soothing a refractory child? Is

en, and we took our seats

ould have no n

ed the soup and shut the door after

of my difficulties had just occurred to him, "why don't you make

ortify me. I saw I was in for propounding my

by seeming to assent, by promising to "make up

gainst allowing myself to seem to accept a fals

yself together

, led up to by pre-determination. There can be no question of making up. I never try to write nor to think. I do not i

staring at m

id merely a

aug

k pro tem of the impulse stirring his being, which dictates to him what it pleases. There is no consideration in his mind-'I will write this or that' or 'I won't write the other.' He simply feels he must write a particular thing; it crowds off his pen before he can stop it. He does n

ear V

is to say, when his fit is on, that there is a breathing into his brain. It becomes full of images he is unfamiliar with, crowded with thoughts that are quite foreign perhaps to the man himself, to his life, to his habits, and invested with a peculiar knowledge of things he has had no personal experience of. T

tively, going on with his s

, and we can hardly find a better one, only unfortunately we don't believe in gods. Otherwise, entheos eimi contains everything, for the man who was only common clay before his inspiration, and will be common clay when it departs, feels, for the time

relation to what I said about your writin

is way: Suppose I have a death scene to write. My MS. is waiting for that to complete it. I don't say to myself beforehand, Now there shall be a bed with Tomkins dying in it; there shall be Maria at the left-hand corner, and Jane at the right. The wife and doctor shall be grouped artistically at the foot. Tomkins shall make two speeches before he dies; no, three-three is more natural-uneven number. Now what shall Tomkins say? Yes. Ah-hum-what the deuce shall I make him say? It must not be too much like what a dying man would say, because the British public is dead against realism. It must not either show any strong contempt for religion; a little mild contempt, of course, goes down and is fashionable, but I must not express it forcibly. He must not either evince a disbelief in immortality-at least that's dangerous ground. Some publishers will accept it and some won't.-Better leave it out. Ah-hum-what shall Tomkins say? I have it! A retrospe

ike that," my father answered deliber

? I have not told you my way yet, but I'm coming to it when the man's

only to tranquilly continue eating while I talked. He had forc

dies? I do not know yet. His eyelids quiver, the black veins in his throat knot up, he gasps. I bend lower: 'his breath comes hurriedly: his eyes open and fix upon me: they are red, vitreous but conscious: then I know he will speak, he is going to-the next moment his half-strangled voice reaches my ear. He is speaking, and that which I hear him say, I write: no more, no less, no different. His voice dies away, inarticulate. I see his lips whiten and draw back upon his teeth. His hands clutch me as a convulsive spasm wrenches his muscles. There is a tense, rigid silence, and then one deep-drawn groan. Nerve, limb, muscle, and flesh collapse as the Life is set loose. The damp body sinks back, leaving its death sweat on my arms, its gasp in my ears. Tomkins is dead. But the impulse is not done with me yet. I cannot get out of that hospital ward till I have done everything, passed through all the circumstances that crop up naturally from the death of Tomkins. There is no 'making up.' The scene is being enacted before me. It is. It exists. It is the truth for the time being, and, as the truth, I write it. There is the miserable girl, sobbing convulsively, with her arms out-stretched in the bed-clothes. Can I leave her without some words of consolation? I must write d

nary views!" mu

lence, and called up Nous to

these books you have mentioned the wife runs away, but it does not make much impression. You have put it all so forcibly, and given the characters and episode so much life, and driven the idea of her infidelity so far home to one, that, well, it becomes a different thing-one realises it.' 'Oh, then you admit the immoral theme and the language to be unobjectionable, and the book would have been accepted by the British public provided only it had been less well written?' 'Yes, I suppose it comes to that.' And then I caught his eye, and we both laughed. He is a clever fellow himself, I should think, and the ludicrousness of the idea tickled him as much as it did me. I came away. His admission was quite the truth. It is the British way to take the second-rate in every art and scout the best. Write a book poorly and feebly, and it passes. Write the same thing powerfully and well, and the cry

hair like that, Vi

chair down on its fore legs again

on't you ea

am fed upon ann

," he answered, looking at me. "

ke out my brains. I daresay I shall stumble across some man at last with courage enough to stand by me in the beginning and help me force open the British public's jaws and cram m

rself just this minute!" ret

ry likely! Abs

less of this talent you boast of y

and let me have something more paying! Besides, I can't admit that for any earthly reas

onceit could c

with it. Nature made it black, and black it is, and I know it. Should I gain anything by contending that it was red? I don't see that I shoul

ever will, at this p

I answered, e

ave the trouble of c

ithout a word. At twenty minutes to ten my fath

ou going to

nswered, getting up a

you be

o earthly use my going to bed when I feel like this. I can't get t

e morphia or somet

would rather wear myself out, and induce sleep in

good-

d-ni

n my hands thinking. I had meant to ask him a question at dinner, but t

to the collie. The dog st

tail and poising his head at an intelligent angle. I got up, felt for my latch-key, and went into the hall. Nous waited impatiently while I put on my hat and ov

direction in which my feet carried me. I was wrapped up in a maze of

m dragged after it a chain of painful, fettering considerations, and the gleams of light that it threw round it