"One does not easily get accustomed to anything that is against natural law," I said, coldly.
"Oh! and you mean that it is against the natural law of things that so brilliant a genius as yourself should be perpetually rejected?"
I nodded. "Just so," I answered.
"It is a pity they will not take your estimation of your own powers!"
"There is very little difference in the estimation," I said. "The difference is in the courage. I have the courage to write things they have not the courage to print. There is no question as to my powers. No one, except yourself, perhaps, has ever denied those."
"Well, why the dickens don't you write something that they will accept? Why not make up something quite conventional?"
I looked across the hearth at him with a half amused, half ironical smile, and said nothing. It is so hard to explain to an outsider the involuntariness of all real talent.
This great leading characteristic is invariably but imperfectly grasped by others.
They cannot realise it.
I was too flat in spirits and too tired in body to feel inclined to enter then into an abstruse discussion with him, and I would have let the matter slide.