"Yes, you do: it would give you so good an opportunity of abusing it."
"Do you kindly mean to spare me the trouble?"
"No; for then you would defend it against all my criticisms. I know very well how you rate your picture, Cornelius."
"Do you?"
"Yes; I do. You know it will make your reputation; that it will be praised and admired; but it fails in something on which you have set your heart, and, though it may do for the world, it will not do for Cornelius O'Reilly, his own severest judge, public and critic."
"Oh, you witch!" he replied, unable to repress a smile.
"Do you not like it better now?" I asked, thinking the cloud was beginning to break.
"No, Daisy. It is the old story; something within me to which, do what I will, I cannot give birth; it is this torments me, Daisy, it is this."
"And let it be this," I replied gravely; "let it be this, Cornelius, you will be better than your pictures: if you were not, if you could give all to art, would art be any longer worth living for? Where would be the mystery, the desire, the hope, the charm, to lure you on for ever. I dare say painting resembles life; and that to feel I am better than my pictures, is like the pleasure of feeling 'I am better than my destiny.'"
"And what do you know about that pleasure?" asked Cornelius.