To-morrow?

my father had already withdrawn to his own library. I had missed

from myself. He wrote ardently upon politics, political e

arrange was my own life. I had no ambition to set my country's affairs straight

the toast-rack in front of me, without opening any. The last I came to was quite different from any of the o

lly accurate outline of the cut of a person's identity. This envelope was square, and looked as hard, white and clean as if a stone-tablet had passed through the post. It bore a delicate, weak,

erhaps somewhat hard, delicate, and in will a little weak, impulsive and und

er open after a

the next canvas occurred to me last night, but I want you to help me execute i

ve, and left the meaning decidedly indistinct. If I could not come I

s was I to take Nous? Appar

le note, and it went into my b

. "Muddle all one's language up until nobody has the faintest idea of what the author'

well obey the order

yonic ideas, wishes, plans and suggestions filled it that were quite useless for promp

se, and it was impossible to find any posit

but if I could not, and if ... and if... And so on

ing and giving order to this inward

the house in South Kensington

ved there, and I was told Miss

ry six flights of stairs to a fam

and with a sign to Nous to remai

hin, and thinking the room was empty afte

studio, facing the north light

ront of the canvas between me and the light. She was seemingly entirely abstracted and abso

ilent, look

nt of me, facing the canvas, tha

as when a person looks into distance, and the arm and elbow and wrist tr

decidedly not gold; that is, it did not suggest dye and the Haymarket; b

nd erred, perhaps, on

he architecture of the form was perfect. Each line was worthy of study in itself as a thing of beauty, and the h

n itself the light and pleasure and glow of life, as it

e belonged to me long since if

p forward an

" she said, laying her hand i

ook h

ged for the last two years, this was our in

nor was I sure whether I

that gives birth to the thought came to me, but always when I was away fr

denly held in suspension, just as one stops with feet chained

spoken on my lips, and at the first sight of her they had died unuttered on

s Hyacinthus?" I went into a fit of laughter. "My dear girl! anything to oblige you, but consider," I said, look

er azure, sunny eyes lighting up with laughter, too, as

n infer it. If we only went upon what we

te six-and-twenty; and the remaining difference I can soften down. Ha

n't say another word of advice. Paint your Greek youth as you please. Of co

w, Victor, do be sensible.

ally? You

ipt. Was it accepted?" she said v

on told," I answ

am sorry" would be inadequate to say to a man who felt every fai

it," I said. "Tell me

unlight, that pours in upon a green, open glade. The life-sized figure of Hyacinthus will be standing three-quarters towards the spectator, and a little towards the rush of light from the

he had drifted away on the stream of her i

star

the trees, and every blade of grass or fern in the picture. These small tamarisk trees that fringe the glade will b

Apo

not have a nude god at any price: and it would be too inartistic to clothe Apollo. So I have supposed him invisible; being a god, he would

Do you like it?" she

ventional: but on that account

to be in white, and must look

antly, gloriously happy-because tha

hat he was struck and killed in the moment

le! Is that to be my

ill you,

l I

here, now, and l

hought you said he

I can find another model for the figure. I should like to take you for the whole, but you may be going away or s

shall have them-but that wretched Nous is

ught him!" she exclaimed, and ran h

t me by the easel, and watched her bend over him

?" she said, coming back

nce. Then she pau

?" I said,

-" and she

ue: com

take off yo

oking up into her serious face. "I am n

he was seldom chaf

en in one with th

; but fortunately in this case it's not. Th

nd tie; so that I can sketch your n

was wondering how you were going to

ust in front of me. A piece of plain drawing

more? and throw your eyes

look straig

to the wind

and put me in th

intellect enough to unde

sition she wanted; "that is easy: but how about t

moment that you are succe

imagination that!" I muttere

stracted face opposite me. I did not intend to convey any reproach to her, but per

e pencil she had just taken up, "it is in your ow

th just a touch of cold restrai

but that does not make it any pleasanter. However,

pane, as directed, at the grey, drifting, hurrying November clouds. Had I descried a quoit there about to descend

I m

aint, breathless, mechanical: the voice of a person whose whole being is tens

lly must turn

for worlds!

e peculiar cramp in my neck. Suddenly

ove, Victor! I

e brain commanded. I looked at the girl, oblivious of me, oblivious of herself and of the pain that forced her hand mechanically to her side-looked half with pleasure, half with alarm. It must always bring a delight to the human being to watch the triumph of intellect over matter, of the mental over the physical system, of the mind over the body. The sympathy of our own mind must go with the fellow-mind in its struggles for freedom. It is like one captive calling to another from behind his prison bars. But when we love the body too, and when our reason tells us that the striving captive, if set free, must die; when we remember that by some horrible, unnatural anomaly this spirit, that at times seems divinity itself, is condemned to live in this abominable prison and to perish there, with and in its fetters, then the wave of exultant pleasure, of exuberant, arrogant triumph, that swept over us, poor fellow-prisoners, watching those fetters shaken and almost cast off, thunders back upon us, turned into

self rather," I said, in conventiona

t not taking her eyes from the drawing. "This is only the first study, of course. But t

any art it is recognisable, patent, obvious to all. There is no human clod, no boor who is utterly insensible to its influence. It needs no education to perceive its presence, though the ignorant could not tell you what that presence was. Genius is as the sun itself: as un

wered. "You have caught a most

ad!" she sa

dinary mundane life again, but the hand she had put

ecognise

except for that very glori

d moved the pap

a crayon between her tiny white teeth, and motioning me to a couch under the window. "Sit

, the Latins could possibly have inscribed Frons minima, underrating the forehead, the sublimest feature in the human face, the great distinction between our countenance and that of our Simian prototypes. In this woman I thought it was, perhaps, her chief attraction. Round the temples and summit her light hair lay in thick loose curls. It did not "stray" anywhere. On the contrary, it was very intelligent hair, and knew exactly what to do with itself, how to curl upwards here and catch the light, how to cluster together there in adorable circles and half-circles in the shadow. And then came her forehead, a smooth band of white velvet, upon which two bow-like eyebrows were delicately traced

, abruptly. If I interrupted the work on

up with a s

ed, looking at me with confusi

merely ask you. You

, and she raised her eyebrows wi

, I

oo, with

asked you to do for me; to give

re thinking of it-planning it upon this canvas. I could not have slept had I left this room. Besides, to close your brain to your ideas when they do come!-it is madness! I might never have seen the picture so vividly before me again if I had not

ke this all night with no fire! Th

I don't

othing while you are at work, and you will injure yourself uncon

, an arrogant determination filling her blue eyes. The next minute she

must be sacrificed to it. Health, life itself, must be in the second place. I only value my life for the sake of this talent. Of course, I kn

e utmost to teach her-that her life was valuable to her for other things than the capacity it gave to work. But I checked the words and the thoughts that rose, acting on the same

for the sake of this paintin

ve your work,

and calm, and she

k that would

in your life, and will always do so. I am in the second, I believe; but it is the second, and the step between is wide. It is quite right

arming figure forced itself upon my vision. The round throat and the fine shoulders and the delicate curves of the long figure, sloping to the waist beneath the white serge bodice. Had she really but a second place? If I realised at any time I was not to possess her after all, wh

ear and collected. I did not know myself quite how far that which she had said was the truth. It is useless to talk vaguely and at random, or on mere passing sensations of the moment. Before speaking to another, before entering on a discussion, one must know exactly what one is saying-be prepared to act in accor

twelve, Lucia," I sai

to her feet and c

ou offended at

at her with

sily offended,"

these things with you

ork. Besides, all my excitement, all my amusement, is in it too. When I am not with you it is all I have. It

think I have?" I asked, quietly, a

ean and include a

next morning your time is your own-balls, the Empire; there are a thousand things-all the pleasure, or at any rate t

pinion she held of me. It was untrue, and I meant to remove it. I was silent an instant, thinking how to find wo

t is a mistake. I am not. What makes you

ping across her face, and then leaving it pale and cold, with a shade of reserve and pride upon it. "I have no wish to approach this su

de, at the dignity of each line of her form and the pose of the d

y in search of fatigue. Pleasure, Lucia! there can be none for me now until you belong to me.

as si

n't bel

, impulsively, putting her white hand s

t w

ht the "but" led to some condition more or less contradictory to her expression of belief in me,

at?" I

impose impossible laws upon you, nor do I set up an imaginary standard for you. You have your honour an

what I had expected, and she had touched, as she always did in me, the best springs in my

not have a higher!" I

sm

the smile went on into a slight laugh. "When

the same time

ly good of you. Ho

flame of scarlet? Then a contemptuous smile came with the answering thought. What use were mere empty kisses if she gave me a thousand! This state of things could not go on. The life that I led seemed growing more and more unendurable week by week. It was a life of perpetual restraint, of refusal to every wish, of denial to every desire that rose in me, in which there was a bar laid upon every impulse, and an immovable chain upon every tendency. I was ambitious, and I could get no recognition. I was

into the channel opened before it. Could I have seen my work succeeding I would have foregone everything else willingly and worked with satisfied ardour, closing my eyes to the pleasure of life. Could I have obtained Lucia I would have been content to work and wait patiently till success chose to come to

sed, until existence seemed an intolerable curse. I saw daily other men's works accepted and received, and their talent and genius praised that could produce such a work, which, when it drifted into my hands, I recognised was no better than the MSS. lying in my study, unused, wasted. Sometimes the morning of a day would pass in looking through the reviews and criticisms of the favourite novel of the hour, the aft

idedly, but too h

ust at through the bars. And, together with this excessive longing of the brain to employ its power raged the useless, vehement desire for the woman, until in those moments of silent solitude, it seemed as if two living vultures were upon me, slowly tearing me asunder. As I walked away from Lucia this morning, and when I reached my own steps, I was conscious of a sense of physical illness; my head seemed light and dizzy, as when one gets up after long fever. I was so long opening the door that Nous, who had pushed his whole body close up against it, looked at me

lighting up a cigar, without the least wish to smoke at that

me a little

ed their decision, and are going to bring

oyance at the sneer. "No," I

d you before, and I can only repeat it now, I am not going to make you an independent allowa

ce," I answered calmly. "Have I

one direction, but with a secured income, independence, and married to this girl, I know exactly what

added bitterly. "I should marry Lucia, but on that account I should not neglect the work. Incentive! I should have every inducement to work then as now!-if induc

glishman," he answered coldly; "and if you wa

of motive if you like; I should want to succeed then doubly, and success is only a thing of time.

smiled s

n of success, you can't object to the fulfilment

how long success might not be deferred, and I

returned derisively, and I look

at where one can, without the least annoyance to himself, confer all that another desires, there seems always some inexplicable impulse to withh

s thinking of. At any rate, he reco

you were aided in every possible way. Then you had a fancy to go to India. Well, I got your regiment changed, and you went. Six months after you write that you have determined to become an

d to my head at his words. Still, they were practicall

that before I make you independent, and before you marry, you shall give some proof of your powers in literature. I don't say you must wait till you have acquired a fortune. Your first production that is accepted and acknowledged sets you free. When I see you are r

e with a housemaid or a ballet dancer I could understand your objection, but

u both of you seem half-cracky already, to my mind. Then you are cousins. The relationship is near, unpleasantly near. You are both very much alike, extremely excitable, and with both your heads stuffed f

edge, and suddenly I seemed to see Lucia's pale brilliant face, with its dilated eyes a

maniacs will be, I tremble to t

my cigar end into the fi

trouble about the childr

s old-fashioned ideas were the rock upon which we invariably split. Otherwise we should have got on very well. But he was entirel

nonsense you were talking the other day! I won'

r wish to express sentiments in any

oe-black, and marry this girl on the proceeds, do so. But if you do, you will get no help from me in future. Don't come to me then for funds to

er stretch of s

t to be, Victor?

swered, lightly. "I want the

tion of demonstration; when her complete unconsciousness of herself helped me to restrain and conceal all my own feelings; but if this were dispelled; if she came to greet me with the bright conscious flush of passion; if I saw reflected in her eyes the fire that burnt in me; if I were permitted to take her into my arms and cheat myself for a single illusive instant with the thought that she was mine-what would it all mean? Only giving a sharper, more cutting edge to the bit in my mouth and rousing in her a hunger I could not satisfy. She was at present devoted to her art with a devotion that left her practically indifferent to everything else, and there was a thin frame of ice round her, which her abstraction and her ceaseless work built up; but I was convinced that the smouldering fire of a woman's nature lay underneath-that it was concealed never cheated me for an instant into the belief it was not existent. She was pure-perfectly, absolutely immaculate; but there was another power within and transfused throughout her innocence that swayed and subdued my will as innocence alone could never do. She reminded me of some exquisite, delicate porcelain flagon filled with sparkling wine, that sends its hot crimson glow through the snowy transparent tint

of her art, to draw her half from her own life, before I could take her wholly into my own, seemed a sacrilegious

from the tranquil path of abstraction and occupation she was following now. I am not saying that, as a rule, a woman waits for her lover's kiss to arouse her. On the contrary, I am well aware that most women are uncommonly wide-awake from their thirteenth year, and it is a very old-fashioned and quite exploded idea to suppose that the springs of their nature lie dormant until one particular individual unlocks them. I am only saying that this girl was as yet entirely given over to her genius, and happy in it; and I l

pretty," sh

e hand or

" she had said, laughing.

e ring is useful as a sign that now there is but one man in the w

ugitive scarlet had stained the pale skin, and the eyes had widened and darkened upon me, asking, Tell me, explain what this mysterious feeling i

te

d any longer, clear-headed and hard-working as I had been, against

any times I had said, "This book will certainly be accep

and sink into some humble position which would supply the necessities for a quiet obscure existence-shared with this woman. The weeks, months, years, passed now, wasted, in a dull torture, in a low fever, filled with long, dragging hopes, expectations, possibilities, and no realities. Better sweep all these away and settle into a level, solid existence, contented with the simple natural pleasure

A secretary, a clerk or a shoeblack." It was improbable I should descend to the shoeblack. It was possible that I could become a secretary or a clerk. A secretary or a clerk! The idea amused me. I leaned my elbows on my knees, my forehead on my hands, as I sat and stared down at the bear-skin rug at my feet and saw a vision of fifth-rate existence pass before me. A sub

en or lessen. Even as I thought of it, a revolt rose in me. The revolt of all the higher instincts against enslavement by the lower. The rebellion of all the intellectual impulses against being ruled by the physical. What! weaken, enervate, starve, destroy the mental sinews to gratify the passion for a woman? Crush down the mental emotions to give reins to the physical? It would be the work of a fool. A rooting-up fruit trees to clear a space for weeds. And what of those twenty-six years of life that lay behind me? Did they count for nothing? Was all the repression and the hard work they contained to be flung aside now and wasted? Was the whole principle that had shaped them, of living in and for the intellect, to be utterly reversed now? And yet it was a wretched, poor, burdensome thing, life, as it had been lived by me. The past years stared me in the face mockingly. Clean, capable of being scrutinised in the sunlight, estimable from a moral and mental standpoint, but absolutely barren of pleasure, and, so far, barren of result. I looked at them with little satisfaction or pride. They were as immaculate, as bare, as denuded, as irritating, and as painful to contemplate as a chalk cliff. The character that is summed up in the line "video meliora proboque, detiora sequor" is supposed to be very common, and meets with universal comprehension and commiseration. Mine, perhaps, would find neither. I followed the good-that is, good as the world's opinion goes-the straight line in life, without any of the enthusiasm for virtue to form a consolation and support. I looked upon vice without that repulsion that makes resista

me. I should marry this girl and the world asks no more. This other lower life that lay in my power appealed to me in all its sweetness-this woman as she would be when mine. Those li

me like a viscous web. I struggled against it, b

and felt within it, the smooth muscles of the white arm-a vision of the whole indefinably supple form swam giddily befor

sen in me, rolled through me and gone by. The struggle was over, and I lived again but to work. I stood on the rug rolling a cigarette, and lighted it leisurely, trying to recall a respectable calm, a

nd I met his ey

ack line," I said; "but to go on-up the hill. Is there any

so unreasonable! You make yourself look deplorably ill about every trifle! You are certa

"I'm going out now," I said,

have got a new plan of work if h

much as to say, Some new phase of

ht me to the house I wanted. Howard was a friend of mine, an intimate frie

d. However, in this case, although I believed Howard to be a weak, worthless, untrustworthy individual, I could not help liking him. He

od-looking discontented face towards me, not improved

said, shaking his

beastly.

, I think," I said, taki

tter?" and I scann

ty, and had a singularly

hanks! Cra

y n

xcept that I've b

aug

d I not say so from the first? I fe

ut the last straw she put upon me was too much

s he shook his head dubiously and

, no, a verse-and we were talking

sideways, loo

s of her h

ee

odd

eavy,' and wanted me to insert another.

t all. Golde

den is hackneyed but still conceivable.

o a fit of

ld have thought of that," I said. "Wha

gruity, but no, she couldn't see it! We jawed about it for a c

ear it; but perhaps a Brea

th a girl who didn't feel there are some things no fellar can do; a

oing an

poem. Like

y mu

en, printed, and blank. After a time he extracted the one he want

Hermaphrodite!' That's far too

Well, go on.

so in

gle weak line. And there's nothing to prevent its being taken even in this d

has a poem, 'H

ch of course is everything. If you want to make your debut before the English reading

t's put 'Duplexus' as its title," he answered,

would sound cynical, and cynical w

to you to find a title! I d

e. Numbers suggested themselves to me, but none sufficiently

Linked Spher

with elevated brows. "What on eart

ne where you say, 'And in his brain

ey are divided-div

title is particularly artistic. It's not clear enough. Your own is much better from the view of intrinsic fitness. But the beauty of Linked Spheres is its indistinctness. You must not be too clear. That has been my great fault-perspicuity-and I am beginning to see it now. It has fatally barred my getting on. I

th the subject in hand, and with a pleasant tinkle about the sound, just like Gladstone's speeches! Linked Spheres! It's impossible, for how the deuce would you link a sphere? Metaph

d lau

, Victor, with the Briti

ughe

the question I came to ask you this afternoon. W

hing a place clear for my elbow on it between a

n one. Paris? why Paris? And how can

ounce that word as if it r

you want me to

e-ah, and the accent is on the

. Ah! what a mouthful! I w

well if you did,

at me and op

d, kicking a very old slipper off his swin

about Paris?

h them there. The language lends itself to perfect lucidity, and the Paris press allows men to write as men. Besides, the French admire word-painting, which is my particular vein. The English don't. They like composition. Here an author's pe

nd self-sufficient as I may be, there is a strand of weakness made up in my composit

both hands into his pockets with an energetic air. "I'm rather dubious about the bo

not, I am not meditating having any high old time, or rat

one is ice on summer seas!' We shall see how long your virtue lasts at La

d action from the point of utility, at his every bad one from the point of secrecy. He would do the first if it were useful to him, and the last if it were secret. These, I believe, were the only two conditions that ever occurred to him. He was weak, even contemptible, in character, and I could not help clearly seeing it, but my friendship to him was won over by his talents, and by a certain good-tempered, easy, pleasant way he had. Widely different though we were, we had never had a quarrel. We got on together perfectly, and he might say things to me that would have offended me fr

to-morrow, I hope, for behold this ro

es of loose papers, letters, bills, poems, drifted over the tables;

k. Shall we s

ready by then. Cross

ing at my watch. "By Jove! close to seven. I must go.

xtended

t about the tin?

at's all ri

seized him. He always insisted on giving me I.O.U.'s and acknowledgments for the sums he borrowed, which I as regu

war

ul

verse? I have not half

hair back. "Your precious Linked Sph

up th

d, and re-desce

some lines of it again. A glow of admiration, almost of affection,

muttered. "If not here, I'l