"Not quite wrecked, but floating rudderless. There's no reason why this shouldn't hit—if you want to make a hit. But it's generally books that are published without intent to 'boom' that stumble into success. At least, it's been so with mine."
"But I'm uneasy about it all. Don't you think the picture intolerably grey?"
"None too grey, my lad—grey is the colour of life," said the man who had just come back from cloudless blue skies and gorgeous sunsets.
"Somehow I felt like that when writing, but when I read it I have an inkling that life is brighter than I have shown it to be; that it's worth while living both in country and in town."
"It's not for me to advise one who has done so well off his own bat, but I would suggest that you work the thing out to its bitter end, keeping true to the artistic impulse which will settle each of the characters for you, and without you, if you but let it have its sway."
"But it would be a bitter end for two of them."
"Precisely. For all of them, probably. It is for most of us."
"There I don't agree with you. Don't you think the bitter end is at the beginning? The book ends bitterly at the start, so to speak."
"I do, and I don't object to that in the least. The fact is, you have subordinated your Philistine nature most wonderfully, and are in a fair way to produce a work of art, but here the Philistine part of you comes uppermost at a critical moment, and has its usual fit of remorse at a piece of genuine art. I would not have credited you with the capacity to produce such a work as this manuscript contains. That is frank, isn't it?"
"And I ought to be flattered, I suppose. But I'm not. I've been disillusioned all along the line, but surely when the illusions fall away life is not merely a corner for moping in. Besides, is it a worthy work to disillusionise others?"