“It doesn’t affect your sight in the least,” said Griggs, “and nobody would notice it, but it affects the expression all the same.”
“You saw it at once,” remarked Katharine.
“Oh—Griggs sees everything,” answered Crowdie. “He probably observed the fact last night when he was introduced to you, and has been thinking about it ever since.”
“Now you’ve interrupted him again,” said Katharine. “Do sit down again, Mr. Griggs, and go on with what you were saying—about the other side of the question.”
“The question of success?”
“Yes—and difficulties—and all that.”
“Delightfully vague—‘all that’! I can only give you an idea of what I mean. The question of success involves its own value, and the ultimate happiness of mankind. Do you see how big it is? It goes through everything, and it has no end. What is success? Getting ahead of other people, I suppose. But in what direction? In the direction of one’s own happiness, presumably. Every one has a prime and innate right to be happy. Ideas about happiness differ. With most people it’s a matter of taste and inherited proclivities. All schemes for making all mankind happy in one direction must fail. A man is happy when he feels that he has succeeded—the sportsman when he has killed his game, the parson when he believes he has saved a soul. We can’t all be parsons, nor all good shots. There must be variety. Happiness is success, in each variety, and nothing else. I mean, of course, belief in one’s own success, with a reasonable amount of acknowledgment. It’s of much less consequence to Crowdie, for instance, what you think, or I think, or Mrs. Crowdie thinks about that picture, than it is to himself. But our opinion has a certain value for him. With an amateur, public opinion is everything, or nearly everything. With a good professional it is quite secondary, because he knows much better than the public can, whether his work is good or bad. He himself is his world—the public is only his weather, fine one day and rainy the next. He prefers his world in fine weather, but even when it rains he would not exchange it for any other. He’s his own king, kingdom and court. He’s his own enemy, his own conqueror, and his own captive—slave is a better word. In the course of time he may even become perfectly indifferent to the weather in his world—that is, to the public. And if he can believe that he is doing a good work, and if he can keep inside his own world, he will probably be happy.”
“But if he goes beyond it?” asked Katharine.
“He will probably be killed—body or soul, or both,” said Griggs, with a queer change of tone.
“It seems to me, that you exclude women altogether from your paradise,” observed Mrs. Crowdie, with a laugh.