“That is one of the chiefest pleasures of being an artist,” he said: “one has the sort of feeling that one is really a channel through which inspiration flows. Now a solicitor or a clerk can go on copying briefs or making a digest or a précis in any mood. He is a mere machine. No doubt his work is more distasteful at one time than it is at another, but it goes on just the same. Nothing comes between him and it except death or very severe toothache, which shows he works without conviction, and is consequently a very feeble sort of animal. It is the same with all mankind except artists and clergymen.”
“But what is one to do in the meanwhile?” asked Tom. “I don’t find these intervals, when some one cuts off the inspiration, at all inspiriting.”
“Why, do nothing,” said Manvers; “don’t think about it. You can’t force a mood. The mood forces you.”
“I can’t acquiesce in that,” said Tom. “I am not going to be ordered about by my own temperament.”
“Ah, my dear fellow, what are you going to be ordered about by if you are not to be ordered about by your temperament? The temperament is the only thing that can order one about. In everything else, if one wants a thing enough one gets it.”
Maud leaned forward.
“I don’t believe that. At least it is not true for all people. Some pass their whole lives in failing to do what they want. But they have a consolation; for they are exactly the people who for the most part give other people what they want. Personally I hardly ever get what I want, and that is why I have a passion for making other people like me.”
At the least hint of anything so superlunary as the mildest metaphysics, Lady Chatham always recorded a protest.
“Maud dear,” she said deprecatingly.
But “Maud dear” was interested, and so to judge by his face was Manvers. His dark eyes had lost their look of slight amusement, and he leaned forward eagerly to hear what Maud had to say next.