“I do not understand—if you can be what you call a paid contributor, why not be a journalist? What is the difference?”
“The one is a professional, the other is an amateur. I am the other.”
“Why not be a professional, then?”
“Because I do not like the profession.”
“What would you like to be? Surely you must have some ambition.”
“None whatever, I assure you.” There was an odd look in George’s eyes, not altogether in accordance with his answer. “I should prefer to live a student’s life, since I must live a life of some kind. I should like to be always my own master—if you would give me my choice, there are plenty of things I should like. But I cannot have them.”
“Most of us are in that condition,” said Constance, rather thoughtfully.
“Are we? Is there anything in the world that you want and cannot have?”
“Yes. Many things.”
“No, I mean concrete things,” George insisted. “Of course I know that you have the correct number of moral and intellectual aspirations. You would like to be a heroine, a saint, and the managing partner of a great charity; you would like to be a scholar, historian, a novelist, and you would certainly like to be a great poetess. You would probably like to lead the fashion in some particular way, for I must allow you a little vanity with so much virtue, but on Sundays, in church, you would like to forget that there are such things as fashions. Of course you would. But all that is not what I mean. When I speak of wants, I mean wants connected with real life. Have you not everything you desire, or could you not have everything? If you do not like New York, can you not go and live in Siberia? If you do not like your house, can you not turn it inside out and upside down and trim it with green parakeet’s wings, if you please? If you have wants, they are moral and intellectual.”