"Oh," he answered, with an air of absolute ease and conviction, "there can be little doubt as to the nature of my abilities. It is quite certain that I should have made an excellent painter if I had ever had the chance to learn the different ways of mixing the colours and using the brush; it is also quite certain that I should have become a great composer if I had been able to study music; and it is also beyond all doubt that I should be a pioneer in the field of literature if my profession permitted the depth of thought and feeling that is necessary to write in grand style."
I thought of my own poems, and could not understand him.
"Why can't you feel and think exactly as other people do?" I asked.
"Lord!" he cried, and laughed again as terribly as before, "how can you imagine such a thing? To be locked in between four walls, to have to carry trays, and to bow and scrape all day long! Can't you understand that by leading such a miserable life as mine, the soul degenerates, the brain decays, and the whole being goes down to the level of a working animal?"
He had perfectly convinced me now, and although I said nothing he must have felt his victory. His face grew calm, and pointing at my trunk, he said:
"Then you have at last grasped what I meant at our parting, and have freed yourself from the narrow ways of country life and are willing to look out for a situation here?"
I told him quickly what I was about to do.
"That beats everything," he said, when I had finished. "Have you gone mad?"
"Why should I have gone mad? Didn't you tell me yourself that I must try to get on?"
"Are you really so silly that you do not understand that you have no right whatever to go in for such a situation as you have described to me?"