"Yes."
"Were you engaged on any work? Did you paint or write?"
"I made a few sketches, which pleased me one day and displeased me the next, so I tore them up and threw them away. There is enough indifferent work in the world."
"Nothing short of perfection will satisfy you," said the Advocate with a serious smile; "but some men must march in the ranks."
"I am not worthy even of that position," said Almer moodily.
The Advocate regarded him with thoughtful eyes.
"If your mind is not deeply reflective, if your power of observation applies only to the surface of things, you are capable of imparting what some call tenderness and I call soul, to every subject which presents itself to you. I have detected this in your letters and conversation. It is a valuable quality. I grant that you may be unfit to cope with practical matters, but in your study you would be able to produce works which would charm if they did not instruct. There is in you a heart instinct which, as it forms part of your nature, would display itself in everything you wrote."
"Useless, Edward, useless! My father was an author; it brought him no happiness."
"How do you know? It may have afforded him consolation, and that is happiness. But I was not speaking of happiness. The true artist does not look to results. He has only one aim and one desire--to produce a perfect work. His task being done--not that he produces a perfect work, but the ennoblement lies in the aspiration and the earnest application--that being done, he has accomplished something worthy, whatever its degree of excellence. The day upon which a man first devotes himself to such labour he awakes within his being a new and delightful life, the life of creative thought. Fresh wonders continually reveal themselves--quaint suggestions, exquisite fancies, and he makes use of them according to the strength of his intellect. He enriches the world."
"And if he is a poor man, starves."