"But, George—they were dedicated to me. Could my cup of agony be fuller?"
"I admit it's full."
"And how about Nicky's?"
"Look here, Jinny. If you or I or Prothero had written those poems we should be drinking cups of agony. But there is no cup of agony for Nicky. He believes that those poems are immortal, and that none of us can rob them of their immortality."
"But if he's slaughtered—and he will be—if they fall on him and tear him limb from limb, poor innocent lamb!"
"He isn't innocent, your lamb. He deserves it. So he won't get it. It's only poets like Prothero who are torn limb from limb."
"I don't know. There are people who'd stick a knife into him as soon as look at him."
"If there are he'll be happy. He'll believe that there's a plot against him to write him down. He'll believe that he's Keats. He'll believe anything. You needn't be sorry for him. If only you or I had Nicky's hope of immortality—if we only had the joy he has even now, in the horrible act of creation. Why, he's never tired. He can go on for ever without turning a hair, whereas look at our hair after a morning's work. Think what it must be to feel that you never can be uninspired, never to have a doubt or a shadowy misgiving. Neither you nor I nor Prothero will ever know a hundredth part of the rapture Nicky knows. We get it for five minutes, an hour, perhaps, and all the rest is simply hard, heavy, heartbreaking, grinding labour."
Their wild pace slackened.
"It's a dog's life, yours and mine, Jinny. Upon my soul, for mere sensation, if I could choose I'd rather be Nicky."