ing before the fire. "There is nothing that a real artist cares less for than what

you call success. It is generally a misfortune if he gets it early, and if it comes to him late he is indifferent to it. It is a misfortune when a man really wants bread and butter and can't get them; when a man is so straitened that he cannot work in peace; but that does not often happen. Most men earn enough to fill their mouths and cover their backs; if they earn more, it generally means that they are throwing away their chances; that the devil of popularity has got their ear and is burying them piecemeal. Neglect and indifference are things which a man ought to pray for, not things to be shunned while one lives and lamented after one is dead. Neglect and indifference mean freedom from temptation, long, quiet days in one's studio, hard work, sound sleep, and healthy growth. It was a great piece of luck for Corot that the world was so long in finding him; that it left him so many years in peace to do his work and let his soul out. His contempt for popularity was well expressed in the phrase, Men are like

flies; if one alights on a dish, others will follow.' No happier man ever lived than Corot during those years when there was nothing to do but sit in the fields, pipe in mouth, and watch the morning sky, and As for Méryon, his

then go and paint it. case was a hard one;

but there was mad

ness in his blood, and, after all, he had the supreme satisfaction of saying his say. He put himself on his plates, and that was enough for any man.

People are so stupid about this matter of success," he continued, walking up and down the room. "They seem to think a man is miserable unless they crowd his studio. For my part, I don't want them there. Don't you understand that all an artist asks is a chance to work? What we want is not success, but the chance to get ourselves on to canvas. I paint because I can't help it; I am tortured with thirst for expression. Give me expression, and I am happy; deny it, and I am miserable." Here a copy of Keats caught his "It is the same with all of us; eye. there was never a greater mistake than the idea that Keats was unhappy because

critics fell foul of him and the people. did n't read him. It is natural to wish that people would see things as we see them, but the chief thing is that we see them ourselves. Keats did n't write for the crowd; he wrote for himself. There was a pain in his soul that could only be eased by writing. When a man writes an 'Ode on a Grecian Urn,' he does n't need to be told that he is successful. They talk about Shakespeare's indifference to fame as if it were the sign of a small nature which could not recognise its own greatness. Can't they see that Shakespeare wrote to free his own mind and heart? that before he wrote either play he had conquered in himself the weakness of Hamlet on the one hand, and the weakness of Romeo on the other? Never was a man more fortunate than Shakespeare, for he wrote himself entirely out; he completely expressed himself. I can imagine him turning his back on London and settling down to his small concerns at Stratford with supreme content. What can the world give to or take from the man who has lived his life and put the

whole of it into art? I understand that everybody is reading Browning nowadays; I am surprised they waited so long. I discovered him long ago, and have fed on him ever since, because I felt the eager longing for life and the quenchless thirst for expression in him. No English poet has said such true things about art, because no one else has understood so thoroughly an artist's hunger and thirst, and the things that give him peace." Just at this point, when I was getting into a talking mood myself, our friend stopped suddenly, declared that he had forgotten an engagement, seized his hat and coat, and made off after his customary abrupt fashion.

CHAPTER XIII

ESCAPING FROM BONDAGE

HAVE often pictured to myself the scene in the old Tower when Raleigh broke the spell of prison life by writing the history of the world. The restless prisoner, a born leader and man of affairs, whose ambitious

projects were spread over two continents, was suddenly secluded from the life of his time at the hour when that life had for every daring spirit an irresistible attraction. On the instant this audacious courtier of fortune, ready to take advantage of any wind and strike for any prize, was locked and bolted in the solitude of a cell! Such a man must find vent for his arrested energies, or prey upon himself. If Raleigh could not go to the world, the world must come to him! And it came,

not to scorn and triumph over him, but to